Six months later…
She sat in Anders' clinic, quietly swinging her crossed ankles back and forth as he spoke with one of his patients. Six weeks, four days and twelve hours had come and gone since she'd last seen Fenris. Working as an enforcer to pay off her exorbitant debt came with long stints hunting for other debtors and special assignments that usually involved protecting goods en route to some clandestine location. For the most part, he was home with her and working with the Wardens on small tasks, while she remained in Kirkwall in sheltered seclusion, only to leave and visit Varric at the Hanged Man or speak with Isabela who Neveren had known from her time in Denerim.
When the mage had finished his private discussion with the man, Anders hung his head and approached the bored woman. She stiffened at the distressed look on his face. When she slid off the crate and began to meet him halfway, he stopped her and grumbled under his breath.
"You seem troubled," she murmured.
"There's something I need to tell you. Or ask of you," he muttered.
"What is it?" Adria asked with a raised eyebrow.
"We are leaving on an expedition in to the Deep Roads and I need someone to mind the clinic while I'm gone."
"And you want me to mind it for you?"
"Exactly," he replied.
"Okay?" She looked around the dirt covered flooring and rolled her eyes nervously.
"I know you're apprehensive about healing people but it should be alright. Most come in for tonics and the like. The occasional pregnant woman will be ready to deliver. You have experience with such a thing?"
"More than I'd like to admit," she snorted. She walked past him with a frown and leaned against a pillar in thought. "How long is this trip supposed to be?"
"A couple of weeks, not all that long," he answered with a shrug. "Neveren's got it on good authority to end her investigation from the First Warden if she doesn't find what she's looking for."
"I'll be fine. I've got Varric and Isabela to keep me company," Adria chirped. "Plus, I could use the break from that training Cousin has me doing."
"How is that going, perchance?"
"Painful," she muttered. "She's quite the slave driver."
Anders chuckled with a satisfactory nod and cleared his throat when the Warden-Commander entered the clinic. Adria continued her nearly unheard of giggle until Neveren quieted her with a sharp glare.
"Are you ready?" she snapped.
"Never, but I'll go regardless," he answered with a smug grin.
Adria gave him a quick hug and swept away the wrinkles in her gown anxiously. While the clashes they had over mages, templars and such still were constantly brought up in heated arguments, the mutual respect they had was implacable. She knew of his deep seated longing that he had for her even if it was preposterous to think of. She belonged to someone else and as long as he understood and respected that, then things had a chance of being copacetic.
"Stay safe out there," she told the pair before they left her to her own devices.
She walked to the railing that held her back from falling in to the contaminated waters below. Orange hues swirled across the sky and the rank overtures of raw sewage couldn't be cleansed by the salt water smells of the sea. It was balmy and in her dark gown she prayed it would rain before she melted in to an unrecognizable puddle.
"Do you plan on staying down here till they get back?" Varric asked from behind her.
"Nope," she chortled. "I was planning on closing up shop for the night and heading to the Hanged Man for a pint or so."
"Now that's a plan I can drink to," the dwarf chuckled.
Adria locked the doors and slipped the key in to her pouch. Muttering all the while to about the carelessness that Anders had set himself up for in the event templars came. Varric stopped her and pointed to the heavy door beside him with a smirk.
"It leads to the cellar of Gamlen's estate. If he ever needs it he can get away before the templar's get here. Or now in this case: you."
"Well will wonders never cease," she snapped. "Let's hope it never comes to that."
"How much longer do we have to wait?" Lilley grumbled as she leaned against her shield.
"It'll take as long as it takes," Fenris muttered in annoyance. He looked in to the night sky and traced the constellations that Adria had taught him. He missed her and with each passing day that passed pangs of loneliness ate at him a bit further. "Another birthday missed."
"At least she'll have one. If you hadn't gone to Harlan when you did she wouldn't be having any more," Lilley stated with a huff.
"True. She has a way of stirring up trouble unnecessarily," he smirked.
"I think she enjoys it." She paused to tuck her hair behind her ear. "You did hear that the Wardens were leaving Kirkwall for a while."
Fenris stiffened and shuddered at the possibility of Adria being left alone without supervision. The starry-eyed girl with strange flights of fancy and copious amounts of traumatizing fears being a solitary person. Even if the room was filled to capacity, she would be the only one there and while she had acclimated to her dealings with the outside world, that naïve sense of spirit had held her back. She was a child amongst a sea of men that would have taken great pleasure in using her to their advantage. He had hoped to get back before they had left, but things had come up and the job was taking longer than expected.
"She'll be fine. The dwarf and Isabela are there to watch over her," he replied with a shrug.
"I wouldn't trust that cow for anything," Lilley warned.
"I don't. I trust Adria and that's about it. Even if she can be a troublemaker, she's…" he thought to himself about the proper descriptor for her. "The only person I have left."
"So little Adria… you and Fenris?" Isabela purred playfully.
"What about us?" she swiveled her head in the pirate's direction.
Alcohol infused auras filled her eyes and gave the bronzed skin woman an unnaturally white glow. The more she blinked the blurrier her vision became.
"You two are close?" she questioned.
"I've known him my whole life," Adria replied with a slur to her words. "We've seen and done things that we cannot undo and as tragic as that may sound, I don't regret any of it." She chugged the vile spume down and slammed the mug on to the table jostling all the little trinkets in to a haphazard dance. "It's been so long since I've had someone I can truly rely on and with Danarius out of the way – for now at least - and years of condition on both his and Hadriana's part, Fenris will one day have to face the inevitable."
"Which is?" Varric asked.
"I can't keep relying on him to save me and I'll have to do it myself. He's not my slave and the more I realize that what was once unattainable I can now have- it makes it harder to face my past and the things I've allowed to happen," she grumbled. She rubbed the burning from her eyes and sat up. "The way he looks at me sometimes causes more pain than when he walks out the door and disappears for days or weeks at a time." She folded her arms across her chest and let her head fall forward. "It's almost as if he needs me more than I need him. Yet every time I tell him that I love him I get the lost stares and averted glances. What if one day he decides that he doesn't need me anymore?"
"What's so wrong about your past that you can't tell him? You're not so much a stranger than an enigma. Maker, you've got us all confused about who you are. Behind that meekness is a terror that shouldn't be messed with. Fenris, on the other hand, has no memory at all about before he was forced in to his position," Varric stated.
"Funnily enough, he wasn't forced in to anything." She closed her eyes and sunk lower in to the wooden chair. She leaned it back on its hind legs and chuckled at the audacity of the strange little omission she'd rarely thought about until then. "He wanted them. I watched him earn them and in the end I lost my brother to his blade. Even he doesn't remember that and I wish not to have to relive that part of my life again. He isn't what he says he is, the name isn't even really his."
"So if you've both been in captivity so long what really is your name?" Varric questioned inquisitively.
The coursing rush of waves crashing along the sheer cliffs of the Wounded Coast heralded the foamy spray on to the land above. Three men emerged from inside the small shack where the Coterie was dealing the Carta thugs. Lilley and Fenris had waited patiently for hours for the exchange to be made and awaited the completion of the transaction just so they could make it back to Kirkwall in time for the sun to come up.
"Sorry, it's going to take longer," one of the couriers stated with an irked expression. "Seems we have a problem with the shipment and the Carta isn't being very forthcoming with their end of the bargain."
"What do you want us to do?" Fenris asked.
"Nothing yet. Just stay here while we discuss what the plan is," a second courier explained hurriedly.
"This was a waste of time," Lilley grumbled.
"It's not going to end well for this batch. I already know – all too well – that the Coterie doesn't take kindly on being jerked around," Fenris muttered. "Why is it taking so long for this one thing to get finished?"
"Beats me," she said with a shrug. "I could use a long bath once I get home. What about you?"
Fenris smirked and adjusted his blade. There were so many things he wanted to do, all involving that one person who had a tendency to send his head spinning with her coy glances and soft spoken words. She got his blood flowing to extremities that took notice with her heated pheromones long before his brain acknowledged the oncoming storm of primal testosterone taking effect.
"I'm going to crawl in to bed and sleep," he sheepishly evaded.
"Sleep? Right," Lilley chortled, seeing right through his ploy.
"Can we change the subject?" he growled uneasily.
"Fine, fine. What do you want to talk about?"
"Nothing. Let's just wait and see what they have in store for us and be done with it."
The name. Her name. It was always Adria. Or mistress. The things she refused to forget and now that she forced herself to face her demons at the bottom of a mug of festering liquids had unblocked hidden hatred and anger. The cork was unsealed and twenty years of lingering foulness seemed to spew forth in a blockage of anything before. She never wanted to forget who she was from before. The things that Danarius couldn't take away were now gone.
"My name?" she questioned to herself. "I…" She strained, fought and the more her memory resisted, the more her frustration seemed to rear its ugly head in sputtering and staggered loops of the dwarf's question. Names and places were as clear as the day she'd heard them, but when it came to who she was, it was wiped away by years of nothingness and reprogramming. "Slaves don't have names. Not fully. They don't have anything but the whims of their masters and are only allowed to have what their master wills." She shuddered when the words came tumbling out of her mouth. In her rushed attempt to conceal her flustered magister speak she glanced at the Isabela and broke. "I don't know."
"It's alright. Calm down," the buxom woman uttered as Adria began to cry. "You'll remember."
"Will I?" Adria screamed, jumping from her chair, sending it to the floor with a clatter. "What do you care what I remember? You're only interested in the one thing I have that you want."
"It's nothing like that," Isabela stammered.
"Adria, she's not the enemy," Varric stated as calmly as he could.
"How do I know who is the enemy and who is not? She comes to this shithole with a world of trouble, begs Neveren to help her with her problems. Eye fucks the elf in front of me and acts like it's nothing and then expects me to believe she's completely innocent in whatever the Qunari have planned. Its bullshit, Varric and you know it," Adria snarled before slamming her fist to the table in a fit of rage.
"That's the alcohol talking," Isabela smirked. "It's alright, Varric, let her go. That liquid courage will eventually run out."
"It's not liquid courage! I'm a cynic you stupid whore!" she growled with spiteful leer.
"Great, now she goes ahead and speaks like all the others thinking I'm stupid," the pirate jabbed.
"Isabela, just let her calm down. She's got a lot going on right now."
"I'm fine. Just…" She sighed and twisted her hair around her finger. "I'm going back to the clinic to sleep this off." She turned to leave and glanced over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Isabela."
"Don't worry about it, kiddo," she said with a smile. "Everything will be alright just you wait."
"Happy birthday, Adria," Varric remarked. "I know you wanted Elf to be here for it. That's why he told me before he left in case he didn't get back in time."
Two weeks later…
The noon day heat had sapped away his remaining energy as he walked down the dark tunnel in to the pits of the Undercity. He carried dread with him as his debilitated body stood inside the egress to the clinic. He shook his wounded hand that harbored a deep gash across his palm. The sutures that prodded his bare flesh were sewn with little care after taking out a group of rival smugglers on the way back to the city.
"Take this," Adria murmured softly handing a bottle of green ointment to a well-dressed man. She adjusted the bandage around her eyes and smiled pleasantly. Her hand was wrapped in cloth and tied delicately to stem blood from seeping on to her patients.
"And if the itching should persist?" he asked. A faint blush of embarrassment snuck across the man's face.
Fenris watched the devious smirk of a witty retort coming to Adria's lips.
"Well, Seneschal, I'd say to stay away from people who smell of stale sweat, piss poor whiskey, desperation, and sea water, but that's not the answer you're looking for. Maybe staying away from Isabela…" She stifled her chuckling and shook her head. She patted the man on the shoulder and apologized for being snide and lacking the bed side manner he was due. "If it comes back, we'll try something different. Just follow the directions in this note to the letter and check back with me in a week or so."
The Seneschal thanked her and scurried away to hide his small ampule of medicine. Adria groaned and removed her bandages and rubbed her weary eyes. Blood flowed down her arm and dripped from her elbow to the ground in front of her. He frowned at her discomfort and knew that being the Darktown healer while Anders was away would be more physically taxing than was first perceived. It was that blasted Warden mage who had asked – strangely enough as it was – to allow her to take his place temporarily.
Why they thought they needed his permission to allow her to do anything seemed like a waste of useful energy and time and should have gone directly to her. Maybe they were worried he would reject the idea on account of her use of magic and the possibility that she would come to some harm when the templars came looking for apostates. They had also tried to warn him of the imminent danger she faced while in Kirkwall. He accepted their plan of taking her under her wing to teach her to harness her magic to fight. Even if it was a lackadaisical sort of fighting she'd be attempting. He saw her first hand attempt to hold him off and with that frail little body of hers she wouldn't be able to hold off a whole group of marauders or mercs the same way he could. But it was something to keep her busy and when her day would be done fiddling with the Wardens, she'd limp home to him where he'd be waiting with a bottle of wine and a warm bed to take her place in beside him.
"Can't go in there?" Varric asked with a jab of the elbow. "Still get nervous around her?"
"No. That's not it," Fenris muttered resting against the outside wall. "Maybe it is. I don't know."
"After everything you two have been through you still get all jumpy in her presence? I don't know whether to think that's sweet or really… really pathetic," the dwarf smirked. He stuck his head in the door and shook his head sadly. "I see she's been attending to more critical issues today. It's been pretty busy as of late."
"You would know?" the elf questioned, looking down at his stalky friend.
"Of course I would. Who do you think walks her home at night and keeps her company. After her blow up with Isabela on her birthday I've tried to keep the two of them apart. She's really sensitive to certain topics involving you and her."
"She got in to a fight with Isabela? I would have almost paid to see that," Fenris shook his head and watched her cough and spit over the side in to the putrid green waters below.
"It didn't go that far, but she's got a mean streak unlike anything I've ever seen. You should be wary of it. 'Cause I sure as shit wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of her," Varric warned.
"Do you realize I watched her slit a man's throat for saying the wrong thing to her? It was something trivial and wouldn't have bothered her under any other circumstances, but the look in her eye when she killed him was unlike anything I'd ever seen in her. She was a completely different person: cold, indifferent, but not full of bloodlust," he reminisced with a furrowed brow. "I never wanted her to have to go that far. She doesn't need to submit to the violence like I have. There are few places I know she fears to tread: looking at herself in the mirror and knowing all the horrible things that have been done to her, remembering how she came to be this submissive and dismissed woman who fears that no one will love her and I think the worst thing she carries is that there will be a time when I won't need her around."
"Ya know, she said the same thing."
"Spend enough time with a person and you learn their darkest fears and desires without them ever being expressed. I've had years with her and she has had far more with me than I can remember."
"So quit standing around and add more time with her," Varric snapped.
"That's the thing, I have to leave again shortly and I don't know whether it's best to just leave her alone and leave again or to see her light up and take that little bit with me," Fenris muttered.
"Well, you're wasting time just watching her. If I was you I'd go for it and let the doubt eat at you later."
Her eyes were on fire as she took off her blindfold and threw it on the cot beside her. Sweat dripped down her pale face smearing her delicately applied make up. She coughed violently in to her hand and scowled at the spattering of blood and mucus that had lodged in to her weary hands. Fanning away as much of the heat she could she closed her eyes and leaned over the wrought iron railing.
"So, this is what you do all day now?" Fenris asked.
"Not much else to do as of this minute, but wait and be bored," she replied without looking at him. She fidgeted with her bandage around her hand and smirked. "How long are you staying this time?" He wrapped his arms around her and held her swathed hand up for him to look at. "That happened at the most inopportune time."
"I'm sorry." He showed her his own healing injury on the same hand and she grabbed it stunned.
"Who did this?"
She pulled him to a nearby table and ordered him to sit on it. She ran to a nearby rack and combed through bottles of different astringents and potions.
"It's nothing, Adria. Calm down," he said trying to reassure her.
"Shut up," she growled forcefully. She took a razor and cut the stitches away. She heard him wince as each thread slid through his layers of skin. She didn't care about the pain she was putting him in; the angry red streaks of a nearing infection were more a problem than the stoic elf trying to hide his discomfort. "Hold still." She uncorked a vial of sour smelling liquid with her teeth and poured it all over his hand. It bubbled with strange red foam that continued to ooze for several minutes. She looked up at him and meekly smiled. "So again, I ask: how long are you here for?"
He looked at the clinic door and back at the puss laced froth that was draining from the raw slash. She patted it dry gently and made sure the debridement was thorough and complete. She clasped her hands around his and murmured a small heal incantation.
"What are you doing?" he yelped angrily.
"Making sure this heals properly," Adria explained through clenched teeth.
She felt her blood boil. The snap, crackle, pop at the base of her skull and the overwhelming urge to drown in her own lifeblood begged her to stop in near unison with Fenris' pleas. She continued on, refusing to let the agonizing ache take control. He pulled his hand from hers and in near blindness she grabbed for her blindfold.
"Damn it! Are you trying to kill yourself?" he yelled and left her side.
He grumbled in Arcanum, swearing up and down that he wasn't willing to be the one she saved at the cost of her life. He couldn't live with that thought constantly haunting him. If anyone was to die for the other it should have been him. Not her, not his trusted ally and beloved. Her head cocked at the last part and yet she remained unmoved by the heated words he spewed in distress.
He came back and wiped the blood from her face and dabbed the corners of her mouth of the hot sanguine fluid that dripped down her chin. His steel tips touched her lips, sweet metal and blood mixed with saliva in a concoction of equally distracting flavors and smells. He placed her bandage around her head and felt his hand trace the contours of her body as she sat with her knees under her. His breath hit her cheek as he rested his head on her shoulder. Small brushes from his lips in the crook of her neck sent her breathing in to an erratic display of yearning.
"Stay with me," she begged. Her voice cracked in unbearable anguish as he pulled her closer to him.
"I can't," he whispered in her ear. She felt the bindings saturate and start to seep from under her blindfold. She was crushed, shattered beyond all reasoning. Why here? Why now? This was no different from any other time he'd had to go off and do things for the Coterie or the Wardens. "Don't cry," he muttered as he wiped away the falling tears. "It kills me to see you cry."
He pressed his lips to hers and even in those deep penetrating heartfelt interactions they shared when they were alone everything would freeze but for a few brief moments where oxygen would disappear and the only way to know you were breathing was from the other person. It was an unabashed contentment and voluminous sense of entitlement that each person had for the other. Slave or master, banisher and overseer it didn't matter. Each had carved their markings on the other. It was a branding that couldn't be replaced or denied. All she remembered in those fleeting times of complete distraction and everything worth doing was reborn and it all felt right until the end would come letting loose another absentminded attempt to hold on for just a second longer.
"I'll see you soon?" she queried between evenly forceful embraces and downright experimental encroachments.
"Sooner than you think," he uttered.
"Promise?" she moaned.
"Always."
He helped her to her feet and took her again in his arms. He knew him all too well. He didn't want to have to leave her again as much as she refused to let him stay gone for so long. He pulled away letting the final touches come from the pointy tips of armored hand. She clasped her hands in front of her and sniffled until his smell had faded in to the afterglow of contentment. She was alone again and after several minutes of standing in an empty clinic with nary a soul to attend to. The violation of silence and loneliness sunk in.
Adria stumbled around, cleaning up the spoiled rags and empty bottles and threw them in a crate to be disposed of. She took her place on top of a crate and knew that eventually some other poor sap would come in with an itch or a rash that needed to be attended to. She couldn't understand how Anders could tolerate such tedium from stupid people. It was a filthy job and while she retained a small modicum of pleasure from aiding some of them; most deserved a swift boot to the head.
"Are you Adria?" a man asked. "The healer?"
"Why do you ask?" she questioned. "Is there something you need from me?"
"We need you to come with us," another man responded.
"What for?" she queried, hopping off the box and removing her blindfold. She blinked several times until her sight adjusted in to what would now be the norm for her. A blurry haze that had no end but fuzzy speckles and overbearing dimness. She rubbed her eyes and saw that three armored men were surrounding her. She knew it all too well. The templars had come trolling for this week's batch of apostates and now it was her turn. She sighed and said that she'd come without a fight. They clapped her in irons and shoved her towards the door. "Before we leave, could you put my blindfold on, my eyes can't handle the bright light yet."
She waited as a red headed templar came back with the blood soaked rag and gently put it around her. She expressed her gratitude and the instant sinking feeling of knowing what it felt like to now be a guest of the Gallows seemed to destroy her nonchalant snarkiness about her peril. She knew Meredith and heard the rumors of what the templars did to those they were supposed to protect. She would be another number, statistic or notch in the belt of some bastard guardsman who abused his power over his charges.
"Thank you, Templar," she grumbled as they walked through Darktown.
"It's Thrask," he remarked politely.
Doesn't matter who you are. I'm damned anyways. Help me, Fenris! They're taking me away and I may never see you again. You don't even know I'm gone and by the time you do… it may be too late.
