Chapter Twenty-Eight: Slave? What slave?

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age 2.

"Seriously," Emma complained as they walked along the wounded coast. "The only good thing about him is that he looks a little bit like Loghain."

Carver rolled his eyes. "We get it. You don't like Aveline's new boyfriend. Maybe you should have thought about that before setting them up."

Emma was outraged. "Oh, I did not! That's lies and slander right there, I tell you. Lies and slander."

"Halt!" a soldier-type man with a ridiculous mustache shouted in his best official-sounding voice. "You are in possession of stolen property!"

"Hunters," Fenris marveled. He looked as though he had been dreading this day just as much as he had been longing for it.

The group members looked at each other in confusion.

"Yes," Varric agreed finally. "We are. Would you like to be more specific about what, exactly, you're looking for? Not that you're likely to get it back, mind you, but we're kind of curious."

The hunter rolled his eyes but he complied with, "That slave."

Fenris tensed up but Emma was honestly confused. "What slave? I think we'd know if there were a slave here." Her eyes hardened. "Are you talking about mages? Because I'll have you know that we have been called some terrible things in our time but not even Meredith is willing to go that far. Not yet, at least."

"No, I'm not talking about mages," the hunter snapped.

"Well, then, you must have the wrong group of random travelers," Emma said, smiling.

"No, we mean the elf!" the hunter cried out.

Emma glanced at Merrill. "I thought you said you weren't talking about mages."

"I am not a mage, Emma," Fenris reminded her.

"Half a mage," Varric spoke up.

"Agree to disagree," Fenris said, glaring at him.

"Are you talking about Fenris?" Emma asked skeptically.

"Of course we are!" the hunter said, beginning to get annoyed.

"Well, you can't have him," Emma said flatly, crossing her arms.

Fenris couldn't believe it. "R-really?"

"Of course," Emma confirmed. "Anders and I talked it over and realized that slavery is like what the Chantry does to mages."

"Not quite as bad but still," Anders piped up.

"So if you're slavers then I'm going to kill you all," Emma announced merrily before holding up her hands and causing them all to be struck by lightning. "Now where were we?"

"I think that we were wandering aimlessly," Merrill informed her.

"Hey, look," Isabela said, walking over to one of the charred mercenaries. "This one's still alive."

Fenris marched over to the man and banged his head against the sand. "Where is he?"

"Please don't kill me!" the man begged.

"That wasn't an answer," Fenris pointed out testily.

"I don't know! Probably back in Tevinter somewhere," the man said desperately. "Hadriana brought us. She's holed up in the caves north of the city. I can show you the way."

Fenris promptly slit the man's throat. "No thank you. I know the way."

Isabela whistled appreciatively. "Bad-ass, Fenris. I approve."

Fenris appeared not to hear her. "I was a fool to think that I was free. They'll never let me be!"

"Weren't you wishing for this day to just come already not that long ago?" Carver asked. "So you could stop waiting and actually kill them?"

"Yes," Fenris admitted. "But I'm still angry that it's actually happening."

"Who is Hadriana?" Emma asked curiously.

"My old master's apprentice," Fenris spat. "She's a sniveling social climber who would sell her own children to please Danarius."

"And now she's going to die," Emma said calmly. "Let's go."

Fenris gave her a strange look. "I still don't know why you want to help me. We don't exactly like each other."

"We didn't like each other when I taught you to read, either," Emma pointed out.

"Why?" Fenris demanded.

Emma just shrugged, unable to find the words.

Fortunately, that subject was quickly forgotten about as they passed Donnic and Aveline having an awkward walk together.

"It's such a nice night for an evening," Aveline was saying.

Emma covered her ears and started running. "I do not need to hear this, I do not need to hear this!"


"Let's be careful, there are a lot of protections here," Fenris cautioned them.

"I don't believe in being careful and, as a mage, I never need to," Emma said boldly. "Sometimes templars make things inconvenient but I can handle that."

"I really hope this isn't a waste of time," Fenris said, sighing.

"Really?" Anders asked, rolling his eyes. "We're here to deal with your past and you're the one complaining that it might be a waste of time? The rest of us aren't really getting anything out of this, you know."

"And if this is, in fact, a waste of time then I won't be getting anything out of it, either," Fenris replied.

They walked along, killing people as they jumped out at them.

"Seriously, this is a cave?" Emma asked skeptically. "This is so not a cave."

"It looks like a cave," Carver pointed out.

"From the outside, maybe, but this is a freaking labyrinth," Emma insisted.

Finally, they found someone who did not attack them on sight, a scrawny little elf.

"Are you hurt? Did they touch you?" Fenris asked immediately.

"She appears to be fine," Varric diagnosed. "Maybe a little underfed but fine. Unless you count the fact that she's probably traumatized."

"They cut Pop up," she said, sounding on the verge of hysteria. "Bled him. They're killing everyone!"

"Why would they do this?" Fenris looked genuinely bewildered.

Merrill really did not want to be the one to have to say it, for obvious reasons, but it really looked like nobody else was going to. "Probably because you were coming and they were planning on using blood magic."

Fenris' expression turned stricken.

"Not that this is your fault or anything!" she hastened to add.

"I say we blame demons," Anders suggested brightly.

"I don't understand why they would do this," the elf said, hugging herself. "The magister loved Papa's soup. Everything was fine until today!"

Pained, Fenris said quietly, "It wasn't. You just didn't know any better."

"Are you my master now?" the elf said, stepping towards them with an eager and hopeful expression on her face.

Fenris looked like he might be sick. "NO!"

"But…I can cook and clean," the elf said desperately. "What else will I do?"

"Emma, do something," Fenris ordered.

"I could give her money?" Emma offered uncertainly.

"That might not be the best idea," Carver said, shaking his head. "She doesn't understand how freedom works and you just want to send her into the world with money she doesn't understand? She'll be taken advantage of in a heartbeat."

"Then what do you suggest I do?" Emma asked, frustrated. "Send her away with nothing? Own somebody?"

"The mansion could always use another maid," Carver told her.

"Really? Thank you!" the elf started to run off.

"Ask about the Hawkes in the old Amell place!" Carver called after her. "Do you think she heard us?"

Emma shrugged. "If not she'll figure it out. Probably. She knows what we look like at least?"

"You better not have just made her your slave," Fenris growled at them.

"We didn't, we promise," Emma assured him. "Too much similarity to the Cirlce, remember?"

Fenris' eye twitched. "I remember that you seem to believe that."

They continued through the freakishly elaborate cave until Fenris finally recognized one of the mages around and growled out, "Hadriana!"

Obligingly, the party killed everyone else and mostly left her for Fenris to deal with. He eventually managed to get the upper hand and she was knocked backwards, her staff flying from her fingers as she fell.

"Stop!" she pleaded, looking terrified and quite pathetic. "You do not want me dead!"

"Is she trying to hypnotize Fenris?" Merrill wondered. "Because I do not think that it is going to work."

"Yes I do," Fenris said bluntly. "The only person I would possibly want to kill more is Danarius and he's not here. And if you were both here then I'd still kill both of you because I'm not about to be pushed into any false dichotomies."

Varric frowned. " 'False dichotomies'? What, exactly, were you having him read?"

Emma shrugged. "My father's old mage texts. Those are always pretty intellectual."

"But I have information, elf, and I will trade it for my life," Hadriana said pleadingly.

"Seriously, when you say 'elf' we don't know if you're talking about Fenris or Merrill, you've got to be more specific," Emma said straight-faced.

"Really?" Hadriana asked skeptically.

"Merrill, can you think of any information that Hadriana here might possess that you could possibly want?" Emma wondered.

Merrill frowned. "I do not believe so but-"

"Fine, Fenris, then," Hadriana said, cutting her off.

"The location of Danarius?" Fenris scoffed. "He's probably in Tevinter and at any rate I'm not going to go chasing after him. He will eventually come to me, especially once I killed you."

"No, not that," Hadriana assured him. "You have a sister and she is alive. Let me go and I'll tell you where she is."

"No, I don't," Fenris said automatically.

"How do you know?" Isabela asked reasonably. "You can't remember your past."

"Why should I believe you?" Fenris challenged.

"Because if you do and you're wrong then all that happens is you'll have to wait to kill me until I come back here," Hadriana pointed out. "But if you don't believe me and you're wrong then you'll never see her again. You'll never even know her name."

Fenris hesitated and approached her.

"So I have your word then?" Hadriana said hopefully. "I tell you and you let me go?"

"Yes," Fenris said shortly. "You have my word."

"Her name is Varania. She is in Qarinus serving a magister by the name of Ahriman," Hadriana revealed.

"Why do you just know this?" Varric wondered. "Am I the only one who finds this creepy?"

"A servant?" Fenris was surprised. "Not a slave?"

"She's not a slave, not anymore," Hadriana promised.

"I believe you," Fenris realized. His markings flashed and Emma knew what he was going to do.

Her magic shot out and struck Hadriana dead before Fenris had the opportunity to.

He burrowed his brow. "What-?"

"You gave your word," Emma said simply. "And you know how I feel about keeping your word."


Fenris was this close to driving Emma crazy and making her take drastic measures due to all of his indecisiveness about whether his sister was even real or if Danarius had her or if he should contact her when the letter from the viscount came.

It probably wasn't the best idea to let Emma go and face him alone but Carver hadn't seen the letter and so she took off before he noticed.

The viscount didn't turn around when she came in and she hadn't talked to his seneschal so Emma wasn't sure how he had known it was her. Or maybe he was just complaining at everyone today.

"Years of nice, quiet anxiety...gone. Along with a whole street," he groused.

"It's too bad you couldn't have done anything to try and salvage the situation and left it up to the qunari to bring me in," Emma said sarcastically. "I bet it was below your station, huh?"

"Are you ever going to let that go?" the viscount demanded.

"I wasn't planning on it, no," Emma informed him. "And that street's not gone. It's inhabitants are a little crazy and dead but it's perfectly habitable again. This city's kind of overpopulated anyway so it's not really a big loss."

"You're heartless," the viscount accused.

Emma glared at him. "I saved them. All you're doing is whining about it afterwards."

"And it was all a mad elf pushed by zealots probably hidden in the very groups I have to appease," the viscount sighed.

"I really don't care about your problems," Emma said bluntly.

Another sigh. "Nobody does."

"I don't care about that, either," Emma announced. "And I'm not so sure about 'hidden.' Have you looked into Sister Petrice yet? She's kind of a bitch."

"I'm far too busy to investigate these matters or even to delegate that to someone else," the viscount claimed.

Emma snorted. "Really? What is it that you do all day?"

"Mostly, I worry about impending crisis while failing to act on them and hoping that some outside agent, such as yourself, will deal with them so I can continue to fret in peace," the viscount explained, finally turning around to face her.

Emma rolled her eyes. "You're kind of useless, aren't you?"

"Meredith personally killed my predecessor," the viscount said defensively. "I really would like to avoid his fate."

"There's a good chance any random citizen of Kirkwall will snap and kill you at some point," Emma told him.

"Please, no random citizen of Kirkwall could get in here," the viscount insisted.

"I'm in here," Emma pointed out.

The viscount unconsciously took a step back.

"And you realize that you have no guards at your door, right? Despite the fact that the guards apparently all live here and are just down the hall?" Emma asked.

"Guard Captain Aveline assured me that they're quite busy," the viscount said somewhat stiffly.

Emma shook her head. "Doing what, I can't tell you. So what's the problem?"

"The qunari won't leave, the mages keep going crazy and getting possessed, there's no oversight on who becomes a Tranquil and literally any templar-recruit can turn any mage into one at this point, we have highly unstable people in positions of great power, I have no power, there's a serial killer running loose, we still have too many people, I've heard unfavorable comparisons about Darktown to Dustown in Orzammar, I-" the viscount burst out.

Emma held up a hand. "Yeah, don't care. That is your problem and not mine. What, specifically, did you need to see me about? And if you just repeat that list then, by the Maker, I will just stab you right now."

The viscount gulped. "R-Right. I had suspected that the Arishok had no plans to leave because, regardless of what everybody seems to think, I am not actually an idiot. I hadn't realized that this was annoying for him as well."

"He can't leave until this sacred text that a friend of mine stole from them and then lost is returned," Emma explained.

"Really?" the viscount asked, wide-eyed. "Is anyone doing anything to find it?"

"Um…she might be," Emma said, shrugging. "I really don't know. I'm certainly not."

"Despite your best efforts, the situation is escalating," the viscount told her seriously.

Emma frowned, trying to remember when she had ever done anything to try and ease relations with the qunari.

"A qunari delegation paid me a visit. It was tentative. Civil. Hopeful," the viscount said wistfully.

"How sure are you that they weren't just scouting out weak points in your defenses and learning how best to conquer this city?" Emma asked him.

The viscount sighed. "Oh, I don't know. It doesn't matter now because they were somehow kidnapped on their way back and now it's a huge mess. The Arishok doesn't know yet but when he does…It's ridiculous! They left this room but the guards swear up and down that they never left the building."

"Maybe the guards just weren't paying attention or weren't there," Emma suggested. "The guards are almost unbelievably bad at their jobs. And how can qunari, even if they were somehow unarmed, get kidnapped by a bunch of non-qunari? Maybe mages could do it but they wouldn't, it would be Chantry people."

"I don't know and insulting the delegates won't smooth the situation over any with the Arishok!" the viscount shouted at her.

"Again, that is not my problem," Emma pointed out.

"Just find them, okay? Preferably alive. We do not want there to be an all-out war no matter how much we would all desperately like the qunari to leave our city," the viscount said firmly.

"Sooner or later, they're going to get sick of us and kill us all," Emma said flatly.

"You're the one whose friend started all of this," the viscount countered. "Talk to my seneschal to learn more."

Emma was not about to be fobbed off on the likes of Seneschal Bran or whatever his name was. On the off-chance that a guard had actually been present and noticed and thus might be involved (or just really bad at his job), they'd probably be at the Hanged Man.

Maybe while she was there Varric or Isabela could explain to her why she was getting involved with this in the first place.

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