AN: Hopefully the last for a good long while, but content warning for sexism and transphobia. Please recall that Morrigan grew up in a bog with her mother telling her she'd be expected to seduce and murder men as soon as she came of age. Her current worldview is rather narrow.

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Flemeth's Hut

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The room was crisp and dry from fire and kindling. Fenris was disoriented, as he awoke. He braced himself against a hard mattress stuffed with straw. The lyrium in his skin was quieter than normal, and what registered first was not the pain, but how the sweat had dried on his skin and his mouth was dusty and the headache was probably dehydration.

He wore nothing, save for the Warden's pendant at his throat. His hand moved to grasp at it idly, and then down to scratch the inside of his thigh. He pressed himself up into sitting position, and let his eyes refocus.

"Ah, your eyes finally open. Mother shall be pleased."

It was the witch. Fenris eyed her warily, though he knew the time for wariness had passed. He had little to be defensive of, sitting unarmed and stripped in the middle of her bed. She could not make him more vulnerable than he already was.

The witch paid him no mind though, as she poured from a pitcher and offered a cup of water in an extended hand.

Fenris accepted it and drank. He coughed, weakly at first, then stronger and clearer as his throat was lubricated by the water.

"I am Morrigan," the witch said, "lest you have forgotten. I have just finished tending your wounds." She looked to him pointedly. "You are welcome, by the way."

Fenris fiddled with the cup and resisted the impulse to cover himself. It was not that he wasn't grateful, he just couldn't bring himself to thank her.

"How does your memory fare?" Morrigan asked.

Fenris cleared his throat. "The battle was lost. We were in the tower when the darkspawn swarmed."

"Mother managed to save you and your friend. Though she mentioned she'd never tended to a patient quite as interesting as you. Like a lyrium battery. You were drifting between here and the Fade. 'Twas a close call."

She looked at him ponderously. And Fenris met her stare until she gave up hope for further answer.

Morrigan shrugged. "'Tis quite lucky you had caught mother's attention. The others were massacred. Now the darkspawn swarm the corpses, feeding, I think. And any survivors they drag beneath the ground, for unknown rituals. Quite grisly. Only a few stragglers managed to flee."

If she intended to shock him, it did little to that effect. Morrigan pursed her lips.

"Your friend… he is not taking it well," she added.

Fenris was not sure he'd ever had anything like a friend. It took him a moment. "You mean Alistair."

"Yes, the dim-witted one who was with you before," Morrigan agreed.

She paused, and Fenris could see the question on her face. Trying to arrange itself into something less trite, something that made sense for her.

"I will admit you had me fooled," she finally said, with a ponderous scratch to her chin. "I mistook you completely for a man."

Fenris watched her warily.

"Is this something you… do?" Morrigan asked. "You get close to them by pretending to be one of them, and then reveal yourself once they are already ensnared?"

Fenris was sure he couldn't even begin to make sense of that.

"I suppose 'tis one way to go about things," Morrigan reasoned. "You are rather plain and mannish, without such a gimmick. We cannot all rely on natural beauty."

Fenris watched as Morrigan lifted an elbow above her head and nearly preened.

He involuntarily pressed a finger idly to the lyrium line under his right nipple. There were no scars, because the lyrium covered them up. The lyrium itself was the scars.

Fenris flinched. So he had been wrong. She could, indeed, make him more vulnerable still.

"May I have my clothes back now?" he snarled.

"My, you are disoriented," Morrigan smiled smugly. "They are laid out on the floor next to you."

Fenris turned and saw that they were. Along with Lethendralis and his pack and supplies.

"Mother asked to see you when you awoke," Morrigan said. "Dress yourself and begone. And take your visitor with you, before he gets more fleas and slobber over the rug."

Fenris blinked, and checked the other side of the bed before he could make the same mistake twice.

The Mabari was there – the one he'd fetched the flower from the Wilds for. He was curled right there atop the rug in a tight coil. And his ears perked and he stood, as Fenris turned his attention towards him.

"His bedside manner was atrocious, you will know," Morrigan said, although she had turned away to stir a pot of stew. "He absolutely refused to leave your side. Growling and snapping. I would have had him skinned but," she heaved a groan, "Mother found him amusing."

Fenris could scarcely hear her though. He reached a hand out, to tentatively brush against the Mabari's jaw. The dog wagged his stubby tail, and turned his head so that Fenris would scratch his ear.

So Fenris hadn't been so alone as he'd thought. This dog had been here to guard him, even while the mages poked and prodded at him. Even hopelessly outmatched, it had waited in this hostile place for him.

The dog barked, as if in agreement, and then placed his paws on the edge of the bed, as if to leap atop it to snuggle next to Fenris.

"Ugh! Get down!" Morrigan snapped, and gave a threatening wave of her ladle. "I've no desire for a bed full of paw prints and mud."

The dog's ears drooped, and he sat back down on the rug.

"Dress and begone," Morrigan said once more. And Fenris hurried to comply this time, less out of anxiety, and more spurred by the encouragement of the dog's survival.

And Morrigan, for all her faults, turned back to her cooking pot and allowed him privacy for this.

..