Varania had not left the city of Minrathous in three years. Oh, she had wanted to. Several times, when she felt sure she'd never earn another coin, when a man had looked at her oddly and she'd been sure he knew her secrets and would tell, when the rains had flooded the streets and the whole city smelled of rotten dead fish. But she had lost that luxury with Sabina, who had no papers proving she was free. Sabina was stuck in the city unless Varania could save up her weight in gold to smuggle them out, unless she trusted the people she heard whispers of that helped slaves running for no cost.

But then, what would she do? At least in Minrathous, she could always turn to crime if her wares didn't sell. Outside of the city, wandering the countryside, she would struggle to feed the two of them. So she stayed, and it hadn't been bad, not always. She had lived with fear so long she could not remember what it felt like to be free of it. Until now.

They had split a watch three ways despite Hawke's strenuous objections. Fenris had stated Hawke needed her rest and both women knew he was talking about the baby. Varania was rather more concerned that magebane would take several more hours to wear off and until then it would be like letting an exuberant puppy keep watch.

So Ivy woke Varania for the second watch. She had gently placed Sabina next to Hawke, tucking the girl's cloak over her shoulders to ward off the night chill, before allowing herself to explore the ruin. When she had satisfied her curiosity, she had sat down at the front door and wrapped her cloak tightly around herself. The moon finished its rise and began to descend and she watched it dipping slowly, breathing in the air that was so unlike that of the city, that was clean and clear.

She would never go back. There was sorrow in that, a complex knot of grief and regret, of longing and despair. And yet, nobody was alive anymore to follow her, to hunt or hurt. That brought a savage smile to her face every time it crossed her mind. The men she had feared were gone now, damned to the void. The one who had started this all dead at her hand. The satisfaction she felt was no less sweet for the tinge of violent madness that accompanied it.

It wasn't justice, not really. And it wasn't vengeance, because Corix and Danarius had taken so many lives that they could not repay it with their deaths alone. But it was over and Sabina could grow without fear of their shadow darkening her door, grow free of the city with its noise and squalor.

That was worth any price Varania may pay in the future.

She heard footsteps from inside, quiet but sure. She looked over her shoulder, hand reaching reflexively to the hilt at her waist as she peered into the darkness. Perhaps it was Hawke, coming to tell her Sabina had woken and asked for her.

Perhaps it was an assassin. After the week she had, not much would surprise her anymore.

It was Fenris instead, scowling at her form. In the gentle light of the moon, his lyrium brands appeared to glow. "Your watch ended over an hour ago."

Had she been so lost in her thoughts? She jerked her eyes back to the moon, calculating and confirming its movement. Vishante kaffas, he was right. Still, there was certainly no reason for him to be angry at her for allowing him to sleep a bit more. "I thought perhaps the rest would improve your cheerful disposition."

He almost looked like Leto again for a moment, Leto at his most prickly and affronted, but Leto nonetheless. If she squinted just right she could nearly see him as he looked while peacefully sleeping. "I thought I'd find you eaten by wolves or worse."

"I think I could fend off a few wolves without incident." She responded immediately, looking back up at the moon to say goodbye to the shining orb before she returned to the darkness of the decrepit interior.

"I can remember you." His admission startled her, made her stiffen her spine. She dared not turn and look at him, not when he may see the roiling sea his words caused. Her mouth was suddenly dry.

"Only pieces." He continued, loping closer. She could imagine his feral grace, like one of the large cats that prowled Seheron, like the wolf that had replaced his name. "But I remember I feared for you in that house. I remember looking for you and being unable to find you. I remember a door."

"The door doesn't matter." Varania tried to sound nonchalant, tried to hide the nausea that rose unbidden at the thought. "It doesn't matter anymore." She muttered.

"I believe I failed you. I can see it… so clearly now. I was a fool and a coward and have been for many years. I could not remember you, so I thought you capable of anything." He was right behind her, and yet miles, years away. "You said your brother would not have abandoned you, but I did."

"I had no claim on your loyalty. I benefited from the arrangement that has caused you so much agony, did I not?" Varania demanded, anger licking at her mind like a lover's tongue. "I made my choice. I had not seen you in years and the last…" She trailed off, biting her tongue.

"When?" His voice had turned harsh, ragged with desperation. "Was it after? After this?" He gestured uselessly to the markings lining his tanned skin. She did not answer, did not want to. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and she did not manage to free it until he called her name in aggravation, his hand on her shoulder. A part of her detached mind observed that he was so careful to only touch cloak and dress, not skin, as if a part of him remembered that she could not bear to be touched after Corix. She had not been able to stand it for years.

"Yes. From a distance. I did not speak to you. You did not look at me. But… mama, she tried. She tried so very hard to get word to you somehow and when that didn't work she waited for you to emerge. But when you did, she called your name. The name she had given you and you did not answer. She tried to grab your arm and you threw her to the ground and cursed her." And Varania had been scared, she was not ashamed to admit it. She was only just seventeen then, a child still, and the creature that had finally emerged from Danarius's mansion had not been her brother. Even from where she had stood, hidden and paralyzed from fear, she'd seen the rage barely contained.

And Fenris did not let go of her shoulder, the weight of his hand heavy but not completely wrong. He was staring into her eyes as if trying to find the memory in her mind and take it into his, his vicious form snarling at his own mother like a monster. "You vanished again for several more weeks into the mansion before emerging again. I had heard the ritual had not been completed to his specifications, but I do not know for sure. Everyone we knew, everyone I spoke to told us to consider you dead. People who had known us for years said that he had removed your soul, that it was better to think of you at the Maker's side."

He was silent, his eyes far away. Varania waited moments before bringing her own hand up over his, at first to remove it from her shoulder, but when his eyes leapt to the gesture she let her palm rest on the back of his hand instead. His skin was warm under hers and he was close enough that she could smell sword polish. The scent squeezed her heart, reminded her of a fireside with her hands full of material and his full of metal and their silence easy, comfortable. Not like this thing, a ticking time bomb or a poison grenade.

"I don't remember that. Sometimes when you speak I can remember a flash, but there is nothing." The man sounded haunted, drained. "I was cruel to her. I must have caused her a great deal of pain."

The cough that had taken their mother had started before that day, a hollow wrecking sound that caused the other elves in the insulae to shake their heads sadly. Varania's healing had been somewhat effective until that awful day, at least keeping her mother up and moving. After her beloved son had shoved her away so terribly, nothing more could have tied Eleni to this world. The woman had given up and laid down to die, as much of a broken heart as the cough that shredded her lungs to bloody bits that were coughed up onto Varania's dresses.

"You were her favorite." Varania could say the words now evenly, without jealousy or blame. She had not been able to for a very long time, but the bruises to her heart had healed long ago. "You caused her far less trouble than I, and she was so very proud of you. She never forgave me for causing you to enter that trap." In truth, Varania had never forgiven herself and could not foresee a future where she didn't carry the guilt of it like a gown of chains.

And that was enough to make her pull away from his hand, to turn her eyes back to the house. She took a step past him, then another, tipping her chin into the air as if she could slip the chains.

"It was not your fault." Fenris muttered. She looked back at him over her shoulder, he was staring up at the moon as she had. And there were no other words to say. She returned back to the room where they slept. The traveling cloak Fenris had been wearing when they left Minrathous was spread over Hawke and Sabina, pulled up to both of their dark heads.

In the morning, she woke to Sabina's chubby fingers patting her cheeks. The dawn streamed weakly through the windows, still pink on the edges. "Mama." She whispered, picking up the fabric of the heavy cloak. "This smells weird."

Varania rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes, blinking wearily at Sabina. "Not like ours." The child continued.

"It is not ours, love." Varania said, reaching out to touch the wool.

"It smells weird." Sabina repeated, pushing the fabric under her nose. "Smell!"

It smelled like a whiff of alcohol, lemon, mineral oil. Sword polish. She propped herself up on her elbow and looked around the room. Hawke was snoring lightly beside them and Ivy was beside her, curled up into a ball so tightly she looked as small as Sabina. The Mabari and Fenris were not present.

"What is that sound?" Sabina asked, her fingers at Varania's cheek again. "Listen, mama…"

Varania listened, then broke out into a smile that reflected in Sabina's green eyes.

"It's birds, dulce meum." Varania whispered, brushing back Sabina's dark curls.

"Birds?" Sabina asked skeptically, and Varania knew she was thinking of the dirty pigeons, skinny and sickly or bloated with maggots that toddled around the Minrathous slums.

"Singing birds." Varania whispered, sitting up entirely. "They're outside in the trees. They sing to say hello to the sun."

Children were a mystery. Sabina believed in fairies and the Maker with barely a thought, but the idea of singing birds instead of rotting pigeons made her look as cynical as an old man. Varania laughed, catching her daughter's arms with her fingers and pulling her close to kiss her forehead. Sabina giggled and wiggled in her arms.

"Perhaps." Hawke's voice was gruff and surly, her blue eyes still hidden beneath her dark hair and an arm flung over her face. "You should take this conversation outside."

Sabina looked chastened for a moment, eyes swinging to Varania. But Varania could not help but laugh. "She's growing a baby and it makes her grumpy." Varania soothed.

"I'll show you grumpy." Hawke grumbled, rolling onto her side away from them. Varania pressed a finger to Sabina's lips and cocked her head to the door in invitation. It took nothing more to have Sabina up, pulling on her arm. The cotton shift she wore swirling around her ankles as Varania stood, taking her hand. They picked their way through the crumbling hallways, much less melancholic in the breaking light, and to the front door. There, Sabina stopped short and turned an inquisitive face to her mother at the sight before them.

The mabari was on it's back, four legs raised to the air. Fenris sat beside the dog, one hand scratching the dog's belly as he praised her in Tevene. Beside them lay what could be called a stick, but what may have been more accurate to call a fallen branch. The dog rolled over, panting and fixed its eyes on Sabina, pushing the branch in her direction with a hopeful whine and a wiggle of its butt.

"Lucia, that one is too big for her to throw." Fenris explained rather patiently. "Perhaps something smaller?"

With a quiet woof, Lucia bounded away. Sabina watched her go and leaned backwards into Varania's skirts, nervous and shy. Fenris looked at her, perhaps the first time the two had a chance to observe each other outside of fight and flight. The grown man looked just as skittish as the girl. Finally he cleared his throat and asked, softly. "Did you sleep well, miss Sabina?"

"Yes." Sabina answered warily. "The noise woke me up."

Fenris's brow wrinkled and his eyes flicked to Varania for an explanation. Varania pointed to the trees and could not help the lump in her throat. It was sorrow and joy. "She has never heard birds that sing." Only birds that ate the refuse even the starving would not touch. Birds that were sometimes caught and cooked by the desperate.

Fenris understood this as few could, his eyes widening a fraction before he shifted to the side. He gestured widely at the trees with a broad stroke of his arm.

Below the trees, the three elves held their breath in silence. In their silence, the songbirds trilled their notes even louder. Gingerly, Sabina stepped away from Varania and to the door, giving Fenris an unnecessarily wide berth before pausing and looking up at the trees.

Varania watched the dim dawn light catch on her dark curls. She watched Sabina's head tip up quietly and breathless with wonder as the light turned her white shift to liquid gold, fine as any cloth Varania had ever held in her hands.

Slowly, Fenris raised a graceful hand and pointed toward one of the trees. "There. See that yellow one in the tree? It is a finch." He whispered.

Sabina focused, still as one of the trees herself, leaning unconsciously forward on her tiptoes as if she may launch into the air herself in a flurry of feathers. Then she beamed and nodded, stepping forward again. "Finch?" She repeated.

"They are good luck on a journey." Varania said softly, slipping beside her daughter and sitting on the girl's side. "Seeing a finch means you will enjoy your travels."

"Who said?" Sabina asked curiously. Varania smiled when she answered.

"It was one of my mother's sayings." Varania paused, watching as the mabari trotted back with a much more manageable stick. He laid it proudly at Sabina's feet. "Pick up the stick, Bina, and throw it at hard as you can."

Sabina bent down and picked it up, looking at the wood in her hand and into the mabari's bright, intelligent eyes. Then she cocked her hand back and let the stick fly several yards. With a woof, the dog sprinted, sticks and leaves thrown up by its paws. It snatched the stick from the ground and spun in a tight circle, racing back to Sabina and pulling up just short of running her over. The dog dropped the stick and opened its mouth, letting her tongue loll out in a near perfect canine grin.

Sabina laughed in amusement, picking the stick up again. "Tell her she did well, Bina." Varania called.

"Canem bonum, Lucia." Fenris said quietly. "Ipsum bonum."

"Canem bonum!" Sabina repeated gleefully. "Vade!" She tossed the stick again, laughing as Lucia ran for it.

"There were finches outside Kirkwall the day I entered the city. I remember thinking that it was a good omen, that it meant I would enjoy my time there. I did not know why I thought that." Fenris admitted. "There are many things I know but I am unsure of how or why. I would like to ask you so many things, but I am unsure of how to begin."

"Perhaps we should start with something small first." Varania began thoughtfully, hesitant. "An unimportant question."

They lapsed into an awkward silence as Sabina and Lucia played. Finally broken by his gruff voice. "Is there a reason I hate fish?"

She couldn't help herself, her nose wrinkled in disgust and she made a face. "We were served spoiled fish as children by the kitchen. One of the children had stolen a whole pie and nobody would confess, so the cook took it upon herself to punish us all. You were...ten? We were ill for days. I cannot stomach it either, but we were lucky. Two of the littlest ones died." But Sabina would never be in a place where the cook could poison children with impunity. Sabina who was throwing sticks to a dog big enough for her to ride, joyful, free, and lovely Sabina.

"That seems a cruel way to punish a child who stole a pie. Was it one of us?" Fenris asked.

"Maker no. You were a well-behaved child." Varania responded instantly. "I was not, but you would never have allowed me to take that risk."

"I discouraged many risks, then?" He asked.

"If not for you, I would have been dead a hundred times by the time I was twelve. A thousand by sixteen. I hated you for it. And…" She stopped, pulled her knees up to her chin and pointed her eyes at Sabina and refused to tear them away. "I loved you fiercely, too. I find I am glad that you found someone else to love you that way."

"You found someone else to love that way." He observed, and she could see his chin point in Sabina's direction.

"I am sorry for what I have done and I would do it again if it was what it took to keep her from their hands. I saw no other option then." She made her voice hard, like steel and stone.

"They are dead and it is past." Fenris said slowly. "Perhaps that is where it belongs."

Before either could speak, Hawke flopped down in the space between them with a heavy thump. She turned her back to Varania and whipped her shirt off with a complete disregard for modesty. "If you don't cut these out, I'm going to rip them out myself." She threatened, handing a pair of scissors over her shoulder and jerking her thumb at the stitches holding a rapidly healing wound together. "They itch like a son of a…"

"Your magic has returned?" Fenris asked as Varania sighed wearily and turned to her neat stitches. She began to snip the thread quickly, gently tugging it free.

"Yes but I feel damn awful." Hawke complained, rubbing her forehead. "I've had less severe hangovers from drinking the swill Corff used to sell for two coppers."

"I recall you telling me once that poison was the finest ale in the Free Marches." Fenris observed snidely. Hawke laughed, the sound free and bold. Sabina looked back and returned Hawke's saucy wink with her own mischievous grin.

"I only said that because I wanted you to come to the Hanged Man so Isabela and I could ogle you." Hawke admitted. "And I don't regret it for a moment."

As soon as the last string was pulled, blue light pulsed, warm and soothing over the wound, healing the last remnants. Hawke sighed in relief, stretching her arms over her head and laying back against the worn stone steps. Before Varania could follow suit and relax, Sabina was crawling into her lap, all elbows and knees, pushing her riot of curls impatiently from her face. "I'm hungry." She declared imperiously.

Hawke made a noise halfway between a retch and a groan. Fenris raised an eyebrow, looking down at her form. "You need to eat."

"You'll be responsible for cleaning up the mess, then." Hawke challenged.

"Shhhh…" Sabina whispered, peering up at Fenris with her clear green eyes and holding a finger to her lips. "Mama said she's growing a baby and grumpy."

Varania hid her laughter in Sabina's curls, but could not stop the shake of her shoulders. Peering through the dark tangles, she could see Fenris's lips quirking in spite of himself. "She is always like this in the morning." He confided conspiratorially.

"If you're finished." Hawke drawled, but even she could not help the smile on her lips. "I think there are dried apples in the packs."

Ivy woke while Varania was trying hopelessly to coax some break into Sabina's stomach in addition to the dried apples. She grumbled and pulled herself to the window, staring in the direction of Minrathous, hidden by the trees and hills, but there was a smudge of smoke far in the horizon. She studied it glumly before she sighed, lowering her head. "Void, that's a lot of paperwork I'm gonna have to do."

"What do we do next?" Hawke asked, scowling as Fenris pointedly pushed a few crackers into her hand with a glare.

"I managed to send a bird when we got here, I'd had this set up as a bolt hole for a bit. With any luck, Nightingale will send instructions." Ivy leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes. "Will take time for 'em to get the city under control."

"Maybe they won't." Hawke said stubbornly.

"They will." Varania and Fenris answered together thoughtlessly. "What chance to men with no weapons have against the Magisters, Reyna?" Fenris finished.

"Perhaps we should have…"

"Stop. I won't listen to this." Fenris cut Hawke off. "You have another beside yourself to guard. I would not have you leading another hopeless cause."

"And what do you think?" Hawke challenged, shooting Varania a glare. Varania turned her gaze slowly back to her hands, braiding Sabina's curls away from her face.

"I think you understand little, but you will." Varania said softly. "Let Minrathous burn. I have what is important."

"Exactly." Fenris remarked. In a flurry of temper, Hawke threw the crackers at his chest and stomped away.

"You are impossible!" Fenris called after her, standing and gracefully stalking after her.

"And that," Ivy began "Is secretly how all men feel about all women."

With that pronouncement, a flutter of feathers settled on the window sill and cawed impatiently, fixing beady eyes reprovingly on Ivy. Ivy crossed her arms and stared down the bird with a tube attached to it's leg.

"Baron Plucky, you little shite. We meet again." The bird cawed back, and if birds could be vulgar, Varania was certain this one was.

"Language." She scolded mildly, pinning Sabina's hairs as the child writhed impatiently.

"I need my leather gloves before I try and get that off. It bites and scratches, so don't ya even think of touching it." Ivy warned, turning to her pack and muttering under her breath.

"The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes." Sabina sang. "Along came a blackbird and snipped off her…"

"Nose!" Varania cackled, pinching the girl's nose between her finger and thumb and letting her giggle in delight.

"Yeah, that's about right." Ivy said, scowling and approaching the bird slowly. Sabina turned to watch, fascinated as the bird squawked.

"Who's it from?" Sabina asked.

"The Inquisition." Ivy explained patiently, waiting. "If we're lucky, it'll have a plan."

"And if we're unlucky?" Varania asked. Ivy's scowl deepened.

"Already bloody unlucky enough, I think, if they sent Baron Plucky."