Chapter 29: Past

Fenris's world had narrowed down to the vague sensation of Marian close by and the sound of his own heartbeat, disturbingly even and slow. He wanted it to pound. He wanted there to be yelling and pain and chaos. But there was only this empty, silent, darkness that he knew too well. He remembered nothing of the things Crasta had revealed to him about his past. He closed his eyes and tried to pull back the veil in his mind, but there was still just...nothing, and it was made so much more disturbing by the insertion of these second-hand accounts of his life. Were they truth? Were they lies? Which one was being used to manipulate him?

Lies he could accept. Lies were meaningless things with no more power over him than his forgotten past. But truth? If these things were true...

"Fenris..." Marian's voice sounded far away. "Fenris..." He didn't want to acknowledge her. The last thing he wanted to see was her face twisted in worry and the last thing he wanted to endure were words of comfort and pity. He finally opened his eyes and the sight that met them was thankfully a far cry from pity. She was a rock of stoicism and she held out to him the bottle of wine the magister had left on the table. She nodded her head slightly and he took it from her hand. Then she turned and sat down in the chair by the fire. She remained silent, but nodded her head again at the bottle he now held. Fenris looked at it, and then downed the whole thing. The wine was bitter on his tongue and warmed his chest going down, but it did nothing to soothe him.

If Marian felt any emotions regarding what they had been told, she did not reveal them when she spoke. "You can either accept the past and let it be or you can allow them to use it as a weapon against you."

Without meaning to, without thinking first and before he could even try to control it, Fenris erupted with anger. "The past?" He heard himself shout at the only person he didn't want to be shouting at, but he couldn't stop himself. "I have no past! I have nothing! I have blank spaces in my head that are now filled with the evil whispers of a man whose participation in torturing me comprises some of the only vivid memories I still own!" His lyrium was flaring and he let it, the burn of it matching his mood and fueling these emotions he couldn't even name.

Marian just sat there and took it, but when he finished she spoke again, this time letting a bit of her own emotions slip and the hurt in her voice only added to his pain. "You have me, Fenris and you have family, which is more than some."

Fenris winced, but he was still too disgusted to let his rant die. "I have no such thing as 'family', Marian! What I apparently have is a woman who would willingly aid those who seek to own me!" He paced the room like a caged animal, which was exactly how he felt. "And to think...and to know...that at some point I cared enough about her to allow...this..." He extended his arms and the lyrium in them surged. "...to happen to me. Indeed, fought so that I could beg them to do this to me, just so she could have freedom and then have it be for nothing? Nothing?! To have my sacrifice, that I don't even remember, squandered and then used to betray me? Let my dear sister have her magisters and their chains and may she rot!" Fenris hurled the now empty bottle he was still holding across the room and it shattered against the wall. He spit on the floor, trying to rid his mouth of the taste of this hate.

"You would believe everything that viper tells you?" Marian's words were balanced as if she was trying to combat his hysteria with logic. "We don't know if there is truth to anything the bastard says. We know only that your sister exists and that she has tried to help us, help you, in the Fade more than once. It was likely the only avenue available to her. Even if she is with Danarius when we get to him, we do not know the circumstances by which she found herself there. In fact, it is more than likely she was manipulated into her position just like us."

She rose from her chair and approached him slowly, not daring to touch him yet. "Why would she plead with me to take you away from these people? Why would she try to wake you when we were attacked on the ship? We know she wants to help you."

"I know nothing of the sort." Fear and resentment were overtaking him and he couldn't see past them. He didn't think his mind was even connected to his shouting anymore, but Marian continued to absorb his directionless anger.

"I know, Fenris." She took another step towards him.

"How? How could you possibly know?!"

"Because I had a brother." Her voice was still measured, enraging him even more. He looked up at her, meaning to offer another senseless and cruel retort, but he saw unshed tears in the corners of her dark eyes. The sight of it broke down the wall of his blind hate as quickly as it had formed.

He stood before her, mouth hanging open, as he swallowed back down the venom on his lips, not knowing how he could forgive himself if those tears fell because of his mindless rage. She continued talking. "I had a brother and he died in my arms. He was stupid and crude and scared of me and he loved me and would have done anything to protect me including following me into the deep roads. And I would have done anything...anything...to protect him; including begging a strange mage in the Fade to help him if I had been given that opportunity, like your sister was given."

Fenris stood silent, unable to respond. Marian closed her eyes and when she opened them again, the tears were gone. "My whole family is dead, Fenris." she closed the distance between them, still not touching him. "I can never know your pain, but I know your sister's. Trust me. Please. We can all help each other against our common enemy."

Suddenly he was so exhausted he couldn't remain standing. He did trust her. Of course he trusted her. He sank down to his knees on the floor, and she did the same. He held his head in his hands and ran his fingers through his hair, breathing in and out trying to find focus again. He would not let anything poison the faith he had in Marian. When he looked up she was sitting before him patiently, with her hands folded in her lap. He wanted to speak, but he had no idea what to say.

"The words you're looking for are, 'Thank you'." She reached out and wove her fingers into his.

"Followed by, 'I love you'." She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on his lips.

"And ending with, 'I'd be lost without you'." He let her wrap her arms around him and hold him.

He sighed into her embrace as he thought, all that and more.

xxxx

In the end, though Fenris did ask her to burn their bed, they were both too tired to tend a bonfire, so they simply retired to another bedroom. Hawke didn't sleep. She let Fenris curl himself around her and she stroked his hair until he eventually drifted into fitful unconsciousness. She tried to join him in the Fade but she couldn't find rest. She didn't want him to be alone there. She envisioned him re-living a thousand different horrible nightmares that made her skin crawl and her love ache and the worst of it was she was sure that what she conjured in her imagination wasn't half so horrible as reality.

When Fenris woke, just as dawn was breaking, it was with a start. Hawke let her arms fall from him and he rose from the bed. When he stood he rubbed the markings on the back of his neck and let out a slow breath. He turned back to her and at first looked disoriented. After a moment the disorientation passed and then he looked stricken. He opened his mouth, but she stopped him before he had a chance to speak.

"Absolutely not, Fenris. Do not apologize to me. We move forward. Together. And one day, when I yell at you simply because you're the one standing there, you'll remember this moment and you'll forgive me." She gave him a wink and a smile. His shoulders visibly relaxed and he hovered around what looked like a desire to say something.

"You know, those words I gave you last night are always an appropriate response, in any situation really." Hawke didn't mind having to help him along in these interactions.

Fenris returned to the bed and pushed her backwards, covering her with his body. His naked skin was warm against hers. His expression was serious, and he met her eyes as he nestled himself between her legs. He dropped his forehead to hers and said, "Thank you." When he slipped inside of her he stuttered out, "I love you." When he collapsed beside her, spent and sated, he squeezed her hand and whispered, "I'd be lost without you."

xxxx

After their dawn interlude they finally availed themselves of the bath Orana had prepared for them last night. He felt restored after washing away the salt of the sea and the filth of their interaction with Crasta. Marian was bright eyed and playful as if she chose, for the moment, to forget about the peril that threatened their every step. As he watched her and listened to her idle chatter he had a vision of something he had not considered before. He had never thought farther into the future than the next command from his master or evading the next group of hunters, but the scene that now entered his head was so clear he felt like he could touch it. He saw himself with Marian, with no enemies to fight, no monsters or magisters at their back and they were just living. He burned the image into his mind, swearing to himself with every oath he knew that he wouldn't rest, would do everything in his power to work towards that future.

"...and you're wearing the most adorable idiotic grin." He hadn't been listening to what she was saying but he heard that last part and immediately covered his face in a frown. She just laughed at him and said, "You're too late, I saw the puppy eyes."

"There are no puppy eyes."

"You don't have to tell me what you were thinking about. Just so you know, I saw them." She smiled and resumed dressing.

With regret, he remembered the next trial that awaited them. Marian gathered up her hair and pinned it atop her head. The elegant line of her neck and proud features needed no help, but her clothing would have to be...remedied.

"You will need new clothes." Though happy to change the subject from his look of longing at his hopes for their future, he wasn't eager to have this discussion with her. He knew she wouldn't submit to this without enough kicking and screaming to assure the Archon himself heard her protests.

"New clothes for what?" She asked innocently as she finished lacing her boots.

"They will expect me to have prepared you for your initiation, which will require you to look more like a magister and less like a mercenary. But before that, since you are not a member of any Circle, you must endure a Harrowing."

The hard lines of Marian's ire and disgust re-emerged on her face at his mention of the tasks ahead of her. "Why would an Imperial Circle of Magi require Harrowings? Surely they don't have templars there waiting to perform the rite of tranquility and slay any demons that might escape from the Fade? I imagine they just let demons wander free on a regular basis so they don't have to go through the trouble of summoning them when they are needed."

"I am not privy to the details, I simply know the basic process by which they will name you a magister. Whether you need it or not, you should bring your father's staff, and as I mentioned we must acquire you more suitable clothing."

She waved her hand dismissively. "We can just ask Varric to pick me up something. When do you think they will send for us?"

Fenris was confused. "Why would the dwarf buy you clothing?"

"He has good taste. I'm not ashamed to admit that I very much do not. He did it all the time for me in Kirkwall whenever I had to go somewhere that didn't involve getting bloody. Although I'm sure I don't want to know exactly how much of my money he was spending on the things he bought."

Apparently Marian's friends shared her strange juxtaposition of qualities that included dangerous and ridiculous. "He is a very odd dwarf."

She raised her eyebrow at him. "And you are a completely normal elf? And I'm a totally average human? We'd all be dead by now if that was the case." With another dismissive wave she proceeded downstairs, where said dwarf was actually waiting for them in the kitchen, helping himself to the food Orana was setting before him.

Marian joined him at the table. "I need clothes Varric. Fenris says I look like a Ferelden peasant." She gave Fenris a cheeky smile as she started eating.

Fenris sat next to her. "I said nothing of the sort. She simply needs more appropriate clothing. They are making her a magister."

Varric casually nodded his head. "Mmm. I heard."

"How could you have possibly heard already?" Marian asked through a mouth full of food.

"You know better than to ask that Hawke. Anyway, it's already done. I brought some things with me, Orana laid them out upstairs for you. I have some more on order, just in case."

Marian scoffed. "Just in case? Just in case what? Just in case I get soiled with the sacrificial blood of innocents when they initiate me into their club of corruption? So that I can change into something clean for the grand party afterwards?"

"Come on, Hawke. This is Tevinter. It'll be an orgy afterwards. Don't need clothes for that." Varric replied straight faced. Fenris coughed and sputtered, choking on the bite of food he had in his mouth. Marian laughed.

Fenris was about to scold her when one of the slaves rushed in bearing a letter. Fenris gestured to him and took the letter from the man. It bore the archon's seal. He opened it and read it. If the contents had been different he would have smiled to himself at his new ability to do so. As it was, however, there was nothing to smile about. "They're wasting no time to bring us further under their control. You've been summoned to the spire." He handed her the letter. She rose and tossed it on the fire in the hearth without even looking at it. Fenris did manage a smile at that.