Fricklebitch (yes you, I see you – and I always respond to reviews. To guests… well, in this manner, I have no choice D: ) : Oh my god XD I was just about to post right now! Here it is! You made my heart swell, whoever you are. Thank you so much!

Yeah so I kind of been busy being bored and not being able to write… So I reupdated the cover photo AGAIN.

Looks more clearly and less shitty here http fav .me /d7soydt

Or basically find AkiDragonwings on DeviantArt and it's the first damn photo.

Thank you for reading so much, this is a tribute kind of. For everyone. And for me. But mostly for you.

This woman's mind is strange, in a way grotesque, with amazing and startling powers.

Hawke, The Fade

She had been having a dream about a long lost figure from her past – a young human lad with an incredibly cocky smirk, astonishingly keen blue eyes and hair as black as raven and ebony, a giant lovely steel sword on his back. It was strange, but she couldn't remember his voice – he was talking or singing in her dream, but it was a silent box of screaming. She couldn't hear him.

For a second, the man turned and saw her, just for a second. He looked at her as if he had recognized her, a small contained smile to his lips and then quickly turned his head away again to resume his stupendously deaf speech with awe.

She didn't only admire him for being a warrior, no. This time it became clearer, in her reverie, that she envied him for being absent of magical powers. She envied him because she could never ever be like him – just a human and just a warrior. Maybe she even envied him for being a man, but that was unnecessary to the tale. She conferred a metaphorical form to her experience as a child and a young woman – the feeling of inadequacy. Both the warrior reverie and the expression "to bump chests with reality" were parts of an unconscious context which only highlighted her own feelings of inadequacy. The ones that came from the simple fact that she couldn't have been born normal and from the lack of anything else thereof that could have helped her win her father's love and approval or her own, for that matter.

She was lying to herself, though. Somewhere deep down, she liked being different; she used her flaws as useful weapons and defences – she thrived because of those flaws, her inadequacies and impenetrable complexes. Like being brutal and sharp whilst wanting to help – to mask her weakness, that she was no less kind and patient than a saint. Or damning people, giving them a hard time to read her, pushing, oh – all the pushing away. Would it not for all the defences of the world, would it not for all the stratagems she used – such a wonderful way of foreseeing every move and expecting the inevitable, all the while getting frustrated by its delay.

Or being overly physical and independent, keeping an aura of assurance and nonchalance, so she wouldn't have to remind herself, so she wouldn't alarm her friends that she could snap her fingers and cause a hundred people to die in terrible burning agony only seconds later.

Such terrible fancy, being at the mercy of your own moral abhorrence. Your decisions very much depending on the state of mind you were in – did you trust yourself to do the right thing? Did you trust that you wouldn't go mad? Switch from terrible kindness to excessive cruelty in one faint second?

Then she realized it was Carver. He had once been here. And the deafness was either her unconscious defences or this was a collective powerful memory of other Grey Wardens who simply didn't pay attention or gave a damn about his ranting.

Fenris, The Fade

Fenris took a seat on the remains of a cut tree, Armand standing next to him with crossed arms and an unyieldingly content figure. They watched Hawke in silence, as she stood in the distance alone with her book, reading with great pleasure – immersed, like always, in whatever she put a hand on.

"Ah, yes, it's vital that I go," Fenris said aloud, but couldn't hear his words properly on account of the thunder and the tripping rain. Then he realized with great distress, that this was all her, yet again.

"I can only assume you won't go to her," Armand said flatly. His Antivan and Vol Dorman accent was sharp and precise, as always happened when he was unperturbed and controlled. Fenris enjoyed the richness it gave to his ever so characteristically short sentences. He thought that Tevinters were rather wise to savor accents. They taught them things about their own tongue.

Hers was rather loud and harsh, deeply Ferelden and containing the ravishingly captivating mixture of half- city elf accent and half- human noble.

He rather loved her- no, he meant, he rather loved her lean graceful movements, and the way in which she responded wholeheartedly to things, to him and his questions, or sometimes not at all. She had been gracious to him since the first moment they met, sharing this, her friends, her food, her experience, her knowledge especially – she gave it wholeheartedly.

"She is a strange woman, indeed. I can see why you fancy her so," Armand said finally.

"Oh?" Fenris replied flatly without looking up at the elf.

"Mind you, I do not think you put much value in appearances, like this undeniably innocent yet badass beauty she has about her figure. But for herself in general – I think you fancy her honesty and dedication, even in the midst of her self-doubt. I think you like that she is a better version of you. One you would like to be yourself, were you not a slave."

His remark amazed him. He forgot how completely in touch with his and other's emotional world this elf was, although being the very strongest of them all, and that he could read minds. He had assumed also that the elf had been watching him of late in his utter silence, keeping his distance, making use of that time to size him up and gather a more comprehensive portrait – whatever that was.

"You must tell me everything you know," Fenris demanded truthfully. His face flushed for an instant, in the cruel waiting of the Antivan's predictable short response, much like his own.

"Armand, please let me know everything," Fenris pressed, due to his silence.

"Oh, yes, I mean to. But let me have a few moments more. Something is going on, you see, and I don't know if it's her general wickedness."

"Wickedness?" he asked in utter innocence.

"I don't mean it so seriously. You see, she's such a strong woman so strange in her ways. Let me tell you everything, yes."

But before he began to look at him and listen, he took stock of her in the distance once more, and made himself note that no one among them, not even this arguably fascinating former slave standing beside him nor the others, no one of them, was anything like her.

In the years they had known each other, they'd witnessed wonders together. They had seen so many strange cases of humanity vs. cruelty, harmless and controlled magic vs. blood magic. They were thoroughly humbled by these visitations, which had almost made a mockery of them, because they were both on a quest for answers which probably did not exist. Each to their own.

At one point, a very long time ago, his attitude had been one of profound sadness, among the paranoia. Thinking that for all her drive and dedication, she could easily come to outwit the world's finest minds and she could destroy the vast majority of this world's men, if she wanted to. In some kind of mage paradise - though she never pressed on mages rebelling, more was this his thinking ahead and paranoia – she could create and enforce peace. It was nonsense – a concept drenched in violence and blood.

But after he got to know her better and started feeling a sense of security and trust in her, he found it difficult to attempt to reason with her on some topics. He thought he would have to take care with his words not to insulter her. But she showed him he needn't have worried. She could barely take offense from him.

During their older convocations, they had few and short discussions about the essence of resorting to blood magic and she kept explaining to him that he was right in his insistencies that if you poke a man enough times and threaten his life or worse, the life of his beloved ones, he could resort to blood magic. She admitted to the fact that she wasn't perfect – that there was a possibility that even she could come to such a tragic event, if some absurd circumstances forced her into it. She didn't and couldn't state that she would never, ever – that she was certain – go through with such a thing.

"I don't treasure my weaknesses," she'd explained to him. "The blood conveys power, I don't question that. Only a fool would. But I know from what I've learned in my past years that the ability to die is key. If I do resort to blood magic by some absurd stretch of the imagination – I'll become too strong for a simple act of suicide thereafter. And I cannot allow that, if I think about it. No, I think that there is a good possibility that I'd say – let me be the human one among you. Let me acquire my strength slowly, as others mages did before me, from time and from my stamina, my resistances. I wouldn't want to become what so many had become through these blood rituals – I would not be that strong and that distant from an easy demise."

Fenris had been amazed at Hawke's obvious displeasure in talking about such things. Nothing about Hawke was simple precisely because everything was. Apart from that, she seemed to be so ancient even if she looked so young and innocent, child-like with those big hazel eyes that screamed 'Where are we? What are we doing? How should I know where we're going? We do a lot of walking, don't we?'.

So ancient as to be utterly divorced from preconceptions and platitudes, or case-driven philosophies. She wanted to know and to understand, before making such statements. But she was honest about it all. About her weaknesses and her strong suits. At first, he didn't seem to be impressed by her speech, but nothing was farther from the truth. He couldn't ask more of her than that. He deeply regretted being hostile to her in the beginning for being a mage.

Who was he to judge such a creature like Hawke? Time after time she proved just how utterly different she was from any magister he had known. She was not of the same species.

Fenris himself had felt a great respect for Hawke's fierce disinclination to use magic at all, of any kinds. She was considerably stronger than other humans and maybe even stronger than him, well able to rule the battlefield and could outmanoeuvre the most clever opponent with ease. Though she was still bound by the laws of "gravity" to a far greater extent than other mages, intentionally.

He shuddered a bit, reminding himself of this creature's deliberate limitations, and of the wisdom she seemed to possess.

That he had seen her, that he'd met her, that he'd heard her voice welcome him into her tumultuous life without much judgement on her part directed at him – all that was reason for thanks.

"This woman is very powerful," Armand finally remarked.

Fenris ignored his remark, "She's been playing a few tricks on me since that one night, and I'm not sure why or how. To be fair, I was drunk the second time. The third, she did it to me. I'm quite taken aback."

"It has you exhausted, hm?" he said considerately. "Are you sure you want to pursue this?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Mark my words. She will be mine," Fenris said firmly.

At the crack of dawn, Fenris was deeply disturbed by a burst of light upsetting his peaceful and belated sleep, his tent was being lifted up and disassembled.

"Wake up, sleepy head," Hawke's faint mockingly sweet voice clawed his ears.

He frowned and tried to get up, resting on his elbow and muttering in a sleepy voice, "I'm getting old."

"You're getting lazy," Hawke retorted without looking at him. "Come on, I can't wait to sleep. You can't imagine what it's like to be stuck with Isabela for half a night."

"Poor you," he said mockingly and got up.

"Maybe I should change patrols and put you with her, so you'd see for yourself," Hawke said with a very determined tone.

"I'd rather drink lava," Fenris said flatly.

Hawke gave him an approving smirk and carried everything to the carriage. He lifted up a couple of things too and followed her, to which Isabela suddenly said, "Is that a pickle in your pocket or are you just happy to see us?"

Fenris turned his head to her with a masked nonchalant look, "For you? Not even force magic can raise it."

Hawke turned her head and widened her eyes in horror at Fenris's uncharacteristically blunt and sexual remark, all the while Isabela ignored his insult and kept staring at his pants. His brief and sudden courage was indeed brief, for he coughed awkwardly and walked away.

Hawke watched him with an amused grin as she leaned with her arm on the carriage, "Somebody got buuurned."

"Yeah, enjoy his three seconds of glory," Isabela said in annoyance. "Big fucking deal."

"Was it big? I didn't get to catch a look," Hawke said in amusement.

"I couldn't tell," Isabela said grumpily. "At least he was truthful."

"Who would have thought," Hawke said cockily, "A certain head didn't turn for Isabela. And by certain, I don't mean Fenris, but a particular head."

"Of course, he's basically into guys. Like you," Isabela retorted defensively.

Hawke leaned cockily against the carriage and looked at Isabela with a grin that said 'I'm so enjoying this and there's nothing you can use as a comeback to turn the table.'

"Black hair woman, lift some things and make yourself useful," Armand said grumpily nearby.

Isabela turned around and rolled her eyes, "Your wish is my command."

"Don't jest," Armand said sharply. "With that attitude you can wake up on a slave boat to Minrathous any day now."

"Wherever it takes me, I'd be content with just being on a boat," Isabela said with a grin. "Then I'll take care of other inconveniences."

"You've been lucky," Armand said flatly. "Luck is chaotic for a reason."

"I can take care of myself. That has nothing to do with luck," Isabela retorted.

"You think yourself too valuable," Armand said, shaking his head. "Survival is your strong suit, but your right to freedom ends where the other's begins."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Isabela asked angrily.

"Be careful who you call friend and who you call usable object," Armand said flatly.

"You don't know me, elf," Isabela retorted defensively.

"I've seen a thousand like you," Armand said with calm disgust. "I don't need to know more." He went by the remaining tents left her hanging.

"What was that all about?" Hawke came by her and asked.

"Harmless flirtations," Isabela lied nonchalantly. "I can't wait to sleep."

"You can say that again," Hawke said with a smile. "We ready to go?"

"As soon as Varric's done with his business in the woods," Dorian said. "Ladies, can you help me here?"

In the meantime, Armand beckoned subtly for Fenris to come by the camp.

"Ready for lesson number one, little bitch?"

Fenris crossed his arms grumpily, "Proceed away, Doctor Love."

"She's a mean trickster, yes?" Armand asked perceptively.

"Very much so," Fenris said grumpily. "She's not a liar, but using the truth to deceive is all the more effective by her principles."

"Beat the trickster at his own game. And how do you do that?" Armand said while sharping up his knife. Fenris didn't answer. "You either use their weapon against them or you surprise them with a new kind of attack."

"I'm familiar with these stratagems. Sadly, she knows them by heart," Fenris said calmly.

Armand laughed. "I take it she's been winning at her game for some time now."

Fenris shook his head, remembering all those witty stratagems she used on him in the beginning, "You have no idea."

"Ego te provoco," Armand said flatly. "Turn the tables. Throw the gauntlet, you know."

"Provoker her?" Fenris asked bewilderedly.

"Well, if you say she's a scrapper, why not turn the table? From whence you came, you shall remain. You can't let her carry this game."

"Fine, state your strategy."

"Vero nihil verus. There's nothing truer than the truth. You know, the truth is beautiful, as the black hair woman said – and that's why it hates delay. So provoke her to be true. In so, forgive the cliché, but the truth will set you free."

"Right, is this some kind of 'a word to the wise' and the hearer can fill in the rest? Because you're just stating platitudes at the moment."

"Forgive me, I'm being nostalgic of those words of wisdom. They're probably the only thing I miss about that filthy Imperium."

"Be more specific, verba gratia," Fenris said angrily.

"If you assault her for answers, she won't back down. That much I can see about your redhead."

"She's not my redhead," Fenris said defensively.

Armand sighed, "Alright, little bitch. That redhead. Who kissed who yesterday?"

"She did."

"That makes things much simpler. Take any opportunity to disarm her. Ah, my brain is not working, what was the expression… Make a sound in the east, then strike in the west."

"Meaning?"

"You create an element of expectation in the enemy's eyes, then surprise him with an attack where his defenses are weakened. So, in other words, if she is such a good conversational strategist, attack her by using other means. She expects you to be silent or argue with her, yes? That's what you've been doing."

"What do you want me to do? Scare her to death for a confession?"

"No, no, nothing blunt. You know this wouldn't work. She will fight back stubbornly and effectively. No," Armand said decisively and shook his palm, the gestured, "Make it more ah… blunt, yet slow. A damager over time thing."

"No more riddles, please."

"Take the opportunity to pilfer a goat. While carrying out your plans be flexible enough to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself, however small, and avail yourself of any profit, however slight. Like now –My friend and the other human will want to sleep in the carriage. I can issue the dwarf to come sit with me as I drive. Then you'll have an opportunity. Strike with exactly what you've been doing and not talking about."

"What?"

"That's your least expected attack. She knows you wouldn't be so cocky and teasing, at least not in public."

"What you're implying sounds like mild rape."

Armand laughed. "It's not rape if the other is willing. And call it for what it is – an innocent form of harassment. Nobody has to rape anyone."

"Can you give me something else to work with?"

"If that doesn't work, you can jump and bark at me later and I'll give you lesson number two, yes?"

"You're just as bad as her."

Armand laughed. "Of course. Redheads are evil. You have white hair, you can take on any color you want, you understand?"

Fenris shook his head. "I wish I could say no, but you make some sense."

"Of course I do," Armand said commandingly. "I've already been through this."

Fenris crossed his arms, "Yes, evidently so."

Armand flinched for half a second and assumed an assaultive position. "Don't be sad, don't be blue, don't ask questions you don't want the answer to. Yes, little bitch?"

"Your mocking threat is nothing if not deeply unnecessary," Fenris said with an unimpressed grimace. Then he practically lied, "I have no interest in your tale."

"Good," Armand said while brushing the knife on his palm. "Keep it that way."

Inside the Carriage, Approaching The Weyrs

Armand kept his word and beckoned for Varric to go next to him and keep him company while driving the carriage when Isabela and Dorian indeed dozed off after, mind you, the cruel and revolting process of singing extremely dirty songs in extremely out of sync tones.

Hawke kept saying she wanted to sleep, but didn't actually keep to her apparent persistency, much as always when it came to sleep.

As if by telepathy, Armand looked back in the carriage to Fenris with a firm look and a decisive nod, to which he responded much the same and turned his head to Hawke. He scooted over the two sleeping 'beauties' and went for the furthest in the back bench where she was sitting peacefully, looking behind outside.

When he took a seat, firstly at a mechanically made polite distance, Hawke turned her head with a surprised frown, "You wish something of me?"

"A company better than a rock, to say the least?" Fenris said nonchalantly.

She narrowed her eyes at him and kept staying on her knees on the bench to face the small window at the back of the carriage. She turned her head to the window and said, "Not much I can do for you, Sir. I'm as helpful as a dying lemming at the moment."

"You don't look or smell dead enough," Fenris retaliated with a short grin. Throwing the gauntlet… any time now…

"Give it a minute," Hawke said jokingly and smiled without looking at him.

"Sadly, my patience is at an end," Fenris said firmly and pulled her by the short Warden robe as to get her to turn around and sit back on the bench normally.

She opposed him with resistance and he kept trying to pull her down. "Could you stop it? If it rips, you pay for it."

"And I am poor," Fenris said in amusement. "So you better come down here before you engage in a bargain without cause for gain."

"I'd rather watch the scenery, thank you," Hawke said nonchalantly.

Armand's long years of training as an assassin shrouded in shadows made his ears very sharp. Unlike Varric, who was talking his mouth like a beating drum anyway telling some dragon slaying story. He grew tired of this painful scene and drove the carriage over a bump, to which the carriage jolted heavily.

Back inside, Hawke pretty much fell on her left on top of Fenris, who caught her as he fell on his back against half the wall and half on the bench. He kept his hands wrapped around her with firm decisiveness and gave her a very big and evil grin which screamed 'You're screwed'. She looked at him with a fierce scowl and cheeks boiling red with fire. He raised them up and brushed his gauntlet on her thigh, as he leaned forward still immobilizing her with one strong hand and started kissing slowly on her neck.

"What are you doing?" Hawke asked quietly with masked calmness.

He didn't answer her.

"Fen- ah," she gasped and pressed her eyes, "Fenris what are you doi-hhing," she stuttered and tensed.

He muttered through his kisses, "My mouth is too busy to answer your foolish question."

"Sto -hop," she tried to say and tensed even more, catching him by the arm that was holding her so brutally. Her eyes were going through the back of her head, "I mean hiih -t."

He sunk his teeth into her with perfect control, not caring anymore about the consequences. Her attempted constraints meant nothing to him. And to her as well, so it started to seem, for she was melting in his grip like ice on fire. He brushed the spikes gently up her thigh and moved her loose hair away from her ear, assaulting it calmly with more slow and lethally diabolical kisses and little bites. She breathed hard and he saw with the back of his eye how she bit her lip to stop whatever sound was screaming to come out of her at this evil and petty move he made on her.

Yes, that was it. Throwing the gauntlet. She couldn't get out of this form of attack even she wanted to. She was trying to pull away only faintly, but even so, he decisively grabbed her face and turned it to face him, meet her tortured and aroused figure begging him to stop. But no, two can play at this game. He gave her a giant wicked grin and continued his devil's work all over her neck again. Whatever she was doing, it wasn't for the purpose of stopping him. She thrust her nails in his thigh and held on to it firmly. Was she trying to beat him at his own game? She brushed her nails up aggressively until the head of the femur, then grabbed his inner thigh as an open threat. His reason didn't work very well at that point, for it could have been over for the growing bulge in his pants in a second if she decided to suddenly use her gauntlet to strip him of any change to have a family.

Thank the gods, for she didn't do that, although he felt guilty to admit to himself – that it filled him with a curious rush of dark desire. He sensed a threat in her posture, but also an immense vigor, as well as harmlessness. But again that sense of bliss descended upon him, and the sight of Hawke's forceful slim body up ahead of him was a constant guilty delight.

Instead of leaving him childless, she inhaled deeply, bit her lip again to withhold all sounds and moved her hand to forcefully grab him by the throat. She looked so diabolically furious, telepathically saying with her eyes 'You wanna mess with me?' and she squeezed his neck tighter. Whatever, they seemed marvelous to him and they maddened his already boyish sense of adventure and desire. She brought him closer, bumping foreheads and breathing hot air on his neck and preparing for murder. She quickly bit his lip and forced his mouth open, pushing her tongue in with an even more driven fury than the last time they had such an encounter. He was cornered and under her full command, but allowing her every move to possess him. She was up to something, he knew it, as he felt a smirk drawing on her playful little mouth. He sensed something powerful coming that was immensely alien to his understanding.

With her other arm she escaped his insistent grip and to the mighty gods and holy trinities, she bluntly and with no little shame shoved her hand between his legs and he could feel the spikes brushing only very gently on his pants. Evil conniving little - She immediately let go of his throat and pushed her hand over his mouth before he let out that one ferocious moan that was coming out. Teaching him a lesson not to mess with her. He looked quickly at the front – nobody saw them, Armand was listening to Varric's loud story and the others were still fully asleep and lying on the floor.

Fine, he learnt his lesson, his heart was beating out of his chest, his cheeks were blushing violently and his pants were pulsating, to say the least… but she wasn't done, was she? No, with Hawke there's always more if she can help it. She gave him a victorious and taunting smirk, letting her hand stay in place over his mouth. He pressed his eyes tightly shut as she started doing the same thing to him, only from his point of view – much, much better. Damned evil souls of the fucking demonic plague, she was good. Every touch sent electrical shocks and shivers down his spine that throbbed in his ribs and made his thigh muscles spasm. She bit progressively along his pointy ear and once she reached the top, she bit only gently, but all the more acutely. Oh, that was even bette- worse… why, why did he have to listen to that elf… Kaffas. She licked the length of his ear with only the wicked tip of her tongue while only faintly caressing his maxillary with the spikes of her gauntlet that was keeping him mute. Very well that she kept him that way, for a million desperate groans were trying to burst out of him. It was too much to bear.

She brutally let go of him in an instant, seeming yet unsatisfied, but landed very nonchalantly at the other end of the bench, grabbing her book back and placing her legs over the arousal in his pants. All that in just a second, as she looked at the front of the carriage and smiled, waving childishly at an unsuspecting and eyebrow-raising Varric, whose attention quickly got diverted by an all-knowingly Armand.

Hawke looked back at him and met a very troubled, tortured, almost dead enough gaze of Fenris. He eyed her with a throbbing shock in his everything, breathing quietly and killing her in his mind. She gave him another triumphant smirk and raised the front of her hand at him and bent every finger consecutively while leaving the middle one up in the air.

Bitch.

You snooze, you loose, Hawke retorted to him telepathically. And don't do that again, yes?

Nighttime, The Weyrs, Third Camp

Armand was a kind man. Fenris oversaw him talk something calmly with his secret lover to which the last one approved with a sigh and gestured assuringly that he wouldn't mind.

Meanwhile, he caught Hawke eyeing him with a questionable look from the other very close fire pit. It was either an 'I kill you' look or 'Please help and get me out of here' look, which could have easily been it for Varric and Isabela were making up a wild story about her and Armand being the 'Diabolical Duo Of The Macabre And Then Some'. He couldn't even tell anymore, but whatever it was, he ignored her completely and looked at the throbbing fire. It was slowly dying, so he interrupted their tale and said, "I need wood. Do you have any more wood?"

Hawke snorted heavily trying not to laugh with extremely lifted eyebrows. Isabela caught her drift and started giggling, too.

He frowned at her, for he didn't get it. "Do I really need to repeat myself?"

"Yes," Hawke said in-between suffocating. "What did you need? I think I misheard."

"I need wood," Fenris repeated syllabically with a colossal frown and Hawke burst into laughter.

He scowled angrily at her, for he lost his patience with her after everything that had happened and shouted, "Vishante kaffas, Hawke, why do you need to make everything so hard?"

At that, Hawke exploded from ferocious laughter and fell onto her back, holding onto her abdomen. Isabela and Varric were laughing, too and he didn't get what was all this mockery about.

He got up and cursed aggressively, which helped him tremendously not to go right at her and lift her up by the throat. "What's so incredibly funny, Hawke? Hm?"

"I'm sorry," Hawke said in-between panting and lying on the grass, "Did you need more wood to erect something?"

"Yes, Hawke, that's usually how it goes with –" he stopped and finally got it. He quickly spat on the ground and left, at which Armand sought to finish his conversation with Dorian early and follow him.

Fenris rushed in heavy fury, throwing curses growingly and disappearing somewhere after a set of trees. He stopped and stood in the summer heat and in the soft dust, breathing in the scent of the viciously hot wind he was more than accustomed to and peering towards the purple velvety sky, beyond which the road, now much neglected, gave forth its few persistent and sorrowful fire torches.

Why was he standing here?

Why did he stand alone in the shadows like a cowardly angry rat, waiting, as if for his grief to be redoubled, as if for his loneliness to be sharpened, so that he would become unemotional again, with his past fine-tuned senses of a beast?

Then gradually, the awareness stole over him, separating him totally from the melancholic surroundings he made so. He tangled in every portion of his being as his eyes saw that his mind desperately wanted to deny.

He sat aggressively on a piece of… wood, and rested his elbows on his knees, still cursing and swearing of every existing and invented holy god and trinity.

Armand himself seemed scarcely a moment before he joined him. Fenris looked towards the woods. The wind was strong. He wondered if this hurt her, what he was doing. For all he could fathom out, he measured her passion as he was looking into her eyes and it seemed just plainly more that than. Even in those maddeningly hot encounters – she touched him with distinctive warmth she could not deny, even he knew it. And how could she not – they spent two years forming a friendship, a certain intimacy that did not rush into anything sexual, well, until he started it all. And now he was ruining it. Perhaps he ought to it to bring her whatever, she was—his friend, his lover, his retarded ghost, his ridiculously beautiful clown mage —back to him, back to the warmth of his past, silent affection, back to his old sense of responsibility for her, back to friendly intimacy they once shared, before all hell broke loose.

Without looking at Armand, Fenris suspected that this strange elf did not leave the slave world behind him so effortlessly, perhaps even harder than he did? One could not just assume. But he did have all his memories of being a slave with him since his very childhood, whereas Fenris was still particularly young, a ridiculous freak-show of a new-born in plain filth and misery. He felt Armand's memories still festering within him – that this was not easy for him either to rememorize – yet he was disposed completely to believe him.

"It didn't go so well, no?" Armand finally said calmly as he approached him without fear.

Fenris looked up at him and eyed him murderously, having no fear for him now himself. "I should have never listened to you. You know nothing."

"I know a lot, but it can't work out from the first try, litl-… Fenris," Armand said firmly. "It's the same with diseases. You give a man a lousy plant, then when it doesn't work you give him another kind until the cure is found."

Fenris pressed his eyes tightly and growled through his teeth, "I wish I could be cured of this evil cancer."

Armand laughed hoarsely, "That evil cancer is moping around giving you glances whenever you're not looking, you big child," he pressed while gesturing towards the camp. "Just calm your tits and tell me what happened."

"What happened?" Fenris said mockingly. "I'll tell you what happened – I surprised her with your east – west idiotic strategy and she utterly and positively beat me at my own game. She made me her defenseless little desire puppet, all under her own command."

Armand frowned, "This is not slavery, if this is what you're mad about."

Fenris growled and looked at him aggressively, "Of course it's not, I'm not an idiot. What frustrates me is her defeating me at my every attempt. It's exhausting," he said and shook his head. "It's just…"

Armand sighed and sat down on the grass to have his eyesight in line with Fenris's. "You still are intent on having her?"

Fenris didn't answer, instead looking silently at the ground and scowling. Finally he said with a disapproving, self-loathing tone, "Yes."

"Remember what I said the other day?" Armand asked in a calm town which relaxed Fenris down.

"That she is broken," Fenris said bitterly. "Aren't we all?"

"This is not a love-broken thing. I don't know what it is, but holds a power over her, that much is clear to me."

"That's sheer nonsense," Fenris shouted angrily. "I will not hear of it." His face flushed with fury and denial.

Armand looked at him persistently, ignoring his misplaced anger, "Do you want her to get over her burdens?"

Fenris frowned colossally. He was impressed with himself, that he had not hesitated. "Of course I do. Probably just as much as she –" He stopped and pondered for a second, his eyebrows joining in a scowl. Apart from what Armand was implying, he made it no secret that he was a flight risk. For all his apparent loyalty to her, he seemed barely attached to Kirkwall and in her eyes, he could have left any minute if anything went wrong. Of course… and somehow it's the other way around.

Armand remained in polite silence, but finally sighed and pressed, "Have patience", he advised him. "You either provoke her until she breaks or you leave her alone and she will come to you. It's your choice. You already made yourself clear to her."

"This is ridiculous," Fenris said defensively. "What was in my head when I started all this? Where was my head?" he half-shouted in amazement at himself, seeming so impressed by his desperation that he needed a few seconds to sink it all in.

"If it's any consolation to you," Armand hastened to add, "I've seen the way she looks at you. Let alone the way she behaves around you. Her loyalty to you is without a doubt."

Fenris looked up at the perceptive little commanding Antivan and remained silent. He added, "I do not think she means to turn you down."

And with that he felt himself calm down almost entirely, sighing in relief for a second within himself. He saw his own blunder, and had to admit to himself that it wasn't deliberate. But, in a sick way – yet not outright ill-intentioned – he did wish to hurt her, there was no doubt of it. And this he had done. Either that or she really didn't give a damn about him and her nonchalance was genuinely pure.

Armand looked in different directions and finally added, "This wasn't pie for me either. Mind you, I was kind of like her in my particular situation. Being assaultive in my defenses, stealing kisses impulsively when I pleased and when I boiled too much. I grew tired of it quickly."

"How?" Fenris asked insistently.

Armand sighed and looked down, "I only knew lying and murder. And it was exactly the opposite of what I strived to be. I'm sure you can relate. I was also very … well, quiet and defensive, but when I opened my mouth – everything was in said in a tone of an insult. And when I met …" he paused and sighed, "him, I walked into a whole new place and one upon which I depended heavily for some sense of normality, no matter that it was a mere illusion, but then, perhaps normality is always an illusion. Who am I to say?" Armand said bitterly, then continued his patient explanation, "Anyway, I clung onto that familiar territory because it was safer. Tried to convince myself that what I was feeling was plain crap and I shouldn't fool myself. Even if he was standing right in front of me, under my nose, welcoming me, no questions asked."

"How," Fenris pressed, for he didn't answer his question.

Armand continued, "My point is – these familiarities, these childish defenses, however justified, perished like dust when I allowed myself a moment of… clarity. Like taking a breath and looking around – the feeling sank in- that I was free, that I was accepted. That I didn't need much, but I had what I needed. That nothing and no one else was like him and… it was just peace and calm in my, well, in my soul. Every other poison that was etched into it was being banished or terminated in those moments."

Fenris didn't answer, clinging to his silence as a sign for the Antivan to finish, for he still didn't make sense. "This is something both of you need to learn. I give you these words of wisdom now because you are so true in your intent, Fenris, but have you asked yourself if you're ready to take on this kind of commitment? Let go of your problems, allow yourself some happiness? In all honesty?" Armand asked. Fenris didn't answer this time either. "You're too busy being mad with thoughts of her, all the while being mad at her as well. Once you get rid of this childish competition acts, you two will see some reason. But it's not that hard. And even if only one or both of you make it so – it is worth it," Armand said calmly, this time looking straight into his eyes. His Antivan accent stung him with the truth, "Trust me."

That seemed to make perfect sense at the moment, perhaps only because he wanted it to make sense, so that neither of them would be deeply hurt by some more commanding truth. He couldn't be more envious of this elf, though, all the while being in awe of his kindness, his courtesy to reach out to him. It was still utterly ridiculous and revolting, but it helped.

Fenris had a dawning sense of how much delight awaited him. Never mind his dark past. He was still furious, but had some sense even then that anger renders one weak.

And his need of Hawke became so terrible that he could not envision her or think of her anymore. But still, he thought desperately, if this man Armand can preserve such kindness and patience, this strange liberty within him and with taking a lover – if love could bind him and prevent him from breaking apart, if his disparate provinces in his mind splintered by the cruelty of his past can be united by accepting love, and with that, freedom… If Armand cold keep back the barbaric sense in him, which only apparently, seemed would forever pillage his mind without building or preserving anything… who was he to judge, I, who am outside of life?

PHEW! I'm EXHAUSTED. Sleep deprived. Please review xx