This chapter: Well... we're not done but yeah, think about this way. There's only Night Terrors and Questionable Beliefs left and then A Bitter Pill and then... well, I don't know. I lie, I know, but of course, I won't tell you.
"Broo—el—Fenris… ?"
His face seemed perfectly serene, doubled by a nonviolent air of content as he finished the bottle in one take which of course, would have caused the ordinary man to choke and scream and spit everything out on account of having his throat turn into a coal factory that also caught on fire and at the same time volcano nearby erupted and the place had been overrun with hot, hot lava. Fenris, however, did not so much as flicker. He put the bottle on the table, left his hand clutching at it for a bit while dauntlessly looking forward. Varric watched him sit like this, with his index finger softly banging on the bottle and his green empty eyes fixed into all the same empty space.
They used to make a most astounding dynamic duo back in the day, after Hawke ditched the city to look for Carver. He found that dealing with the kind of people here in Kirkwall, his own resourcefulness and charisma combined with Fenris's unnerving cold demeanor that turned into incessant formidable anger on occasion promised a successful career. Varric knew how to steal time and persuade with words, while Fenris knew how to cut things short, specifically to cut, and especially things shorter than him for negotiating with dwarves, and dwarves in particular he found horrifically annoying. And Varric couldn't help but like him a little whenever he'd find out they had something in common.
And even if he was a skilled archer and a hell of a good shot both with Bianca and with his fists, Varric was not very good at what you could call sustained violence. He thought of himself as a calm person. A reasonable, peaceful, let-the-good-shot-as-a-last-resort kind of person. Not that Fenris was particularly rash with violence, but he was much better at the sustained part. In a way, Varric both admired and envied the fact that Fenris had an apparently bottomless supply of anger when they really needed it for something. When they became friends, and part of reason for it, was that Varric saw that Fenris was not in fact, as he appeared to most of the world, just another freak. Some negative merits can reach a playing field of perfection that changes their very nature, and Fenris had turned anger into an art.
He knew that anger solely pertained to his former oppressors, and his apathy to the world was born because of this, and that it would be a long way for him to turn into a fully functioning normal person, but until then his fierceness and grouchiness could have still been put to good use. Especially since to the outside eye—and even to Varric because sometimes it was just so easy to forget— Fenris appeared to be angry as well as cold simply at anything and everything. It looked like simple, pure platonic anger and coldness from somewhere in the primitive depths of the soul, a clear fountain of never-ending red hot grudge and freezing shardy icicles. Varric had occasionally found himself wanting to ask Fenris what exactly happened to him to make him like this, but to Fenris the past was another realm with very, very well-guarded borders, and a millionth time thicker than the Veil. He knew better than to ask.
And when the day was over they'd come here and have a few. Varric never saw him really drunk, but he was still a weird slightly-drunk all the same.
When Hawke had a few, apart from the expected comedy bit, she would talk about exotic animals, question the many peculiarities of how things and mechanisms worked in life and hold tremendously long and surprisingly eloquent speeches about the many ways of how the world was flawed, or about the many ways in which some types of swords were horribly impractical, dumb-looking and whoever invented such execrating examples of sheer absurdity in swordsmanship should stab themselves in the eye with it. And all those argumentative speeches could always and without exception be summed up into: people, of all races, suck and the system, of all races, sucks and anything short of exotic beings that walk on four legs or have wings simply sucks. But most of all Orlesian basket hilts suck so bad even ancient vampires would kneel and denounce their inferiority to the cause of sucking.
The worst case of drunken Hawke was when she turned Ferelden, and that intimidating fiend from the Void itself always had this incredible habit of showing up whenever Varric was alone, but nevertheless it had been democratic enough to come out only once or twice a year to scare him shitless and make him become closer with the Maker.
When Fenris had a few, at least during the six months of the Great Dwarf – Elf Depression of 9:31/32 Dragon, he would become either extremely cheerful or extremely brooding, depending on the drink. If the drink made his mood sink into droopiness more than his normal self-deprecating tendencies animated, or rather unanimated him when sober, he would rest his head in his palm appearing very bored and unimpressed with the world for a while, and then out of the blue he would genuinely ask Varric questions like, "Why do the dwarves here act so puffed-up and bigheaded as if they had an ancestor who invented the formula for turning lead into gold?" or "Why do all women here walk as if they had a broom stuck up their fannies?" or "Why is it you think that human genetics work with such flabbergasting accuracy in making their faces look so… so … what's the word… what is the word… no not asymmetrical, Varric. There's another word for it but I cannot remember… bucked up?" And that's how the more courteous expression of being fucked up was born in the first volume of Hard in Hightown.
When he was cheerful, he wouldn't criticize foreign civilization and society so much as he would start giving names to everything starting with the table, simply dubbed Table of Fenris, to every figure that walked in or talked to them. And as his trade tongue vocabulary grew larger, the names became evermore creative. Coriff was dubbed Genderless Gatekeeper. When he found out that it was in fact his son Corff (to which Varric could hear the mighty throb of Fenris's eyes rolling to the back of his head)who tended the bar and carefully scrutinized him, and after he understood the word was men in his position usually listened to the lament of women and with last call the barkeep would leave with them for the night to further comfort them in their sorrows, he called him Sexless Son of Genderless Gatekeeper. The incredibly pretentious dwarf Uriel who frequented the place he called "Uppy"and the other former noble dwarf Warren Skidrel who always came in wearing six layers of plate armor and could never shut up about how great the warrior caste was back in Orzammar as opposed to the Kirkwall Guard, he called"Whiny Shincleaver". Three Guards who always came in together were dubbed as "Paunchy", "Clay-brained" and "Scullian".
Varric's most beloved and loyal barmaid Norah had the infortune of Fenris never remembering her name, and in the beginning she would be called upon as "human" or "female" but as time went by and fortunately away from her ears, she was granted with the title of Mouse Eyes and Shortskirt von Bouncy Bounce, and when Varric told him her name the fifteenth time that month he said, "Norah? Nor… ah..." He took a sip of his ale and started chuckling with himself and Varric just had to ask and be given the explanation that, "Nor up, nor down is she pleasant to the eyes." Then Varric just had to inquire upon further details to explain his firm hypothesis and Fenris calmly enlightened that he was not familiar with concepts of beauty, but in his eyes however, she wasn't particularly unattractive, only that a few centuries ago Norah's little eyes would have made the great Tevinter painter Leonitus bite his brush in half, five hundred years ago the sculptor Pacuvius would have taken one look at her chin and dropped the chisel on his foot and a millennium ago the Theodosian poets would have agreed that her nose alone was capable of launching at least forty ships. Varric was most amused with these descriptions. As he remarked before, Fenris in many ways was a very unexpected man.
But Varric resolved not to burden his mind with forming concepts of beauty, because he never really was interested in any race but his own, and with the dwarves the concept of female beauty never went more complex than "does not have a beard". Fenris however, though never mentioning anything about any kind of capability to fancy someone and just as well, mentioning not being familiar with concepts of beauty, seemed to be very explicit about it except for his own never mentionedconcept at times of alcohol consumption. So with that peculiar humor of Fenris and the careful criticism of everything and everyone, Varric concluded that somewhere under that metaphorically self-inflicted scar tissue and at the heart of that shuddering anger was the soul of a true connoisseur with an infallible instinct for beauty. It was a strange thing to bind in the body of an elf that ripped hearts out people's chests for a living.
Varric tried to decipher what hidden meanings lurked in his mutterings, but to the best of his ability he could only determine that what Fenris was trying to say was "No female looks good enough" and "No woman can impress me" (which belonged to the larger phrase and historical conviction of "No being can impress me"), but when Hawke came back and Fenris ceased with his fastidious criticisms and instead occupied himself with debating every little thing in the world with Hawke, Varric finally found the missing piece of the puzzle and understood that Fenris didn't have some astounding inborn instinct for art or beauty—but an instinct nonetheless— because the actual phrase was "No female is Hawke enough".
Because she was, indeed, through no real faults of her own perfect for him. She was the kind of woman that in her darkest hour, beaten, scarred, blood drooping all around her perhaps even missing a limb or two would still smile and say, "I can walk unaided" and inquire about how the others were doing. She was also the kind of woman who could make even cauliflower seem funny on the rainiest of days. And though few people liked her without prejudice or some inconvenience with her views or behavior, she wasn't one to judge and denigrate to make things even. The most you could get was a snarky comment, but most people just received unnervingly cold eyes and a "Cheers". She was also a fierce and strategically-driven mind, at least when she was not drunk, the kind of mind that could win a war before it ever took place, again, if she was not drunk. There was also this duality of seeing her as an impossibly lovely and humorous young girl, while sometimes spotting in her eyes a woman a great deal wiser and an ocean sadder. One who understood the nature of pain, the nature of hard work, of the power of will, and beneath the glory of her features, there was character and a great deal of knowledge. And those things made beauty beside the prettiness of some face. She was the most beautiful woman in a hundred years in Fenris's eyes, and she didn't seem to care.
And much like him, Hawke was fairly disappointed and unimpressed with a city where in Hightown everyone acted like society lords and in Lowtown everyone acted as if they were the ultimate victims of fate, yet still took no break in remaining poor because their main priority was finding a cheap powder or dust or bath salt they could snort. But noblemen she hated more than anyone, and before she only had to take jobs from them, but now she was living among them with no more hope to give them a black eye and have her name come up every few papers in a huge stack of official reports either on Dumar's or Meredith's desk. Nevertheless, the trio was ready and willing, and there were dire times when a self-important jackass really begged for it.
As drunken avant-garde Hawke once said, there would be a time when a new way of things would come, one without the shackles of tradition holding them back and one where powerful people will not be so powerful just by poking their feathers in the inkwell or speaking in a pretentious accent—Happening people. Fenris for example, she said, happened all the time.
"Varric," happening Fenris said, his hand carefully leaving the bottle and moving to slowly undo the buttons from the collar of his shirt.
Varric silently gulped and frantically kept his eyes on him. He almost whispered, "You… alright?"
But Fenris appeared not to have heard him, silently and carefully undoing those first buttons and slowly lifting up the sleeves of his shirt.
"Elf?" Varric pressed, leaning forward to catch his eyes.
Fenris inhaled shortly while still staring through him, and then his face grew titanically adorable with murder.
He rose, half-stumbling over the table, grabbed his sword and made haste for the door. It was surprising to Varric how incredibly thoughtful he was that he also grabbed the frock coat and left it on the bench at their other companions' table for safekeeping. But the most important part was that whatever he was happening to do now was in serious need of a half-reasonable intervention on his part, so in the flash of a second he got up, grabbed Bianca and went straight out the door after him.
Nighttime, Outside Of The Hanged Man, Lowtown District
Fenris came out the door and scrutinized the area to the best of his impaired vision. His head was blowing up and nothing like a thought happened to swirl around the havoc in his mind. He started to walk, tried to, hitting his sword on the ground whenever he would lose balance. He looked forward, he looked backwards, and clutched to the sword as the imagery sort of quivered in front of his eyes. If she was nowhere in sight, then it must be true, what he saw back there in the tavern.
He cursed and spat and cursed some more.
Luckily, Varric's voice came from behind, "Elf, calm down and let's go back inside nice and slowly."
Fenris didn't answer, instead staring into empty space again, or searching it in vain.
"Earth to Fenris!" Varric pleaded in annoyance and waved his hand. "I'm down here, not that it's oh so amusing right now."
He didn't flinch or curl a lip. Varric kicked him in the leg. Again, no flinch. But then Fenris heard what sounded like an Ahah echoing from afar, and since the streets were empty, and because he could not care less about misconduct, he made haste and went straight forward in the direction the sound came from.
"Where the hell are you going!" Varric shouted. He went after him immediately, becoming yet again close to the Maker, because he was sure than this was Fenris's alternative "hot-headed Ferelden mode" Varric would later call "silently murderous Tevinter mode".
Fenris was surprisingly fast even in his half-stumbling pace, and Varric tried to keep up as much as he could and find some reason in his eyes on the way. He presumed what Fenris's inner voice was screaming was highly flattering and generous Tevinter curses.
In reality, the only thing going on in Fenris's head as they started going up the stairs to the Lowtown Market was —"I'll kill you, I'll killyoukillyoukillyoukillyoukillkillkill you'll kill you kill you'll kill you —"
The terrible fury choked him, the rage and dreadful fear set his lungs on fire, and the stairs felt like they unrolled and made him go down. There was no end to them. They climbed forever, while he was falling backwards into hell. But hell buoyed him up, gave wings to his rage, lifted him, sent him back…
And then, his breath now nothing more than one long profane scream, he reached the top step—
There was Hawke farther away, and there, the goatish swag-bellied abortive pumpion Alfie.
"Dwarf!" Fenris called flatly. He made haste to them, drew out his sword, raised it a little just to point towards his head and said, "Prepare to die."
Hawke looked at him in disbelief, her eyebrows arching up Heaven. Varric was shaking his head rapidly and raised his palms out from afar.
"On what grounds?" Alfie the dwarf demanded, taking a step towards him undaunted.
Fenris tightened his eyes on him, took a step forward himself and growled, "On the grounds of shut up and fight me."
"Well how can I refuse someone who begs for it," Alfie said with contempt, approaching him further. "Any last words, elf?"
Fenris looked down on him without concern and said, "Bite me."
"Well then, let the fight begin," Alfie said confidently.
"With pleasure," Fenris retorted coldly.
"No way!" Hawke shouted, taking a step between them. "Hells to the no to the fuck you and you BOTH. NO. "
"Stand aside, Hawke," Fenris demanded, his eyes flaring with murder past her arm and down to the dwarf.
"Yes, Hawke, you can't interrupt a gentleman's duel," Alfie said from down below.
"OH, I CANNOT?" she shouted angrily and turned to Alfie. She flung her arms out and shouted again, "But of course a gentleman can interrupt a duel between a lady and another gentleman because that's how the code of make-believe chivalry goes, is that it? You sodding misogynistic sheep-biting clap dish!"
Someone needed to bring a dictionary, and fast.
And then something that passed for thought came about in Fenris's head after hearing this and looking down to see that he hadn't noticed Hawke had been all this time with her sword drawn and Alfie was the same. As Isabela had previously pointed she really needed the D… which to his miscalculations turned out to still stand for "Duel." She was about to have a duel… Because Varric vetoed duels to be forbidden between companions that day.
Before Fenris could say anything however, Hawke turned around with impossible fury in her eyes and pointed at him. "And you! You ruttish knotty-pated pignut."
He lifted his eyebrows with incomprehension as to what she meant, but her finger was enough to make him understand she was referring to him.
"Yes?" he said.
"What in the Void is going on in that little brain of yours coming after me like that and threatening men with death on the street as if this is just another Tuesday?"
"Well, in my defense y—" Fenris started, but couldn't form any other words to attend to his behavior. He cleared his throat nervously and looked in different directions as he stated, "It is a Tuesday."
Hawke rolled her eyes, angry and about to strike him. "Actually it's already Wednesday, but yeah let's argue about the calendar, that is often the best argument in cases like this!"
"Are we going to fight here or what?" Alfie shouted impatiently. "Don't care who it is, really."
"Shut up," Hawke growled. She turned around angrily and waved a dismissive hand, "And begone."
"Oh come on!" Alfie cried. "He threatened me, what am I supposed to do? Hide behind your skirt?"
And then Hawke broke into the most genuinely maniacal smile and muttered between her teeth, "You have three seconds to disappear before I crack your skull open and give Corff those little dwarven eyeballs to put in tomorrow's Stew Surprise."
And then he was gone.
She turned around and caught Fenris's eyes in her vortex of hatred. "Great. Now I lost my one chance to have a duel." She started to walk away and muttered angrily, "Thanks a heaps, Ser Knight."
"In his defense, he—" Varric started, scratching his head. "Well, he was genuinely concerned over you and you didn't say anything and you know… we thought we'd…"
"So this is your doing too?" Hawke demanded furiously. Varric winced and appeared not to gather any sort of charismatic words to save his ass when faced with this kind of unnerving soul-shuddering figure that Hawke was presenting and the close potential of her literally owning up to it.
Fenris stepped forward and came between them at a healthy fraction of the speed of terror. "It was solely my doing. He only followed me."
"And what were you seeking exactly, by doing this?" Hawke shouted.
Fenris looked down and lifted one sleeve again up his arm. "I… You were… you—"
"I what? You what?" Hawke demanded furiously.
"You were Overseer of Varric's… something-something Day of…" He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Something."
"Smooth," Varric whispered.
"Well then," Hawke muttered, fixing her eyes on him only an inch away from his. "You lost me a duel. Now you owe me one."
Varric immediately jumped. "NO HAWKE, NO D—alright, I'll shut up now."
Varric used to sell his stuff all around the city, hanged around a bit too much in Hightown even for a merchant, and in Lowtown he was known as the bravest person alive, doing his business even outside the Carta's foundry and the "Beggar's Guild" one corner under the bridge. He knew how to get by and stay alive. But turn around the corner and hop into the sewer to get into Darktown and he was the most sanguine cowardly fiend in the world and even the rats and the moths were higher in the ranks of courage than him. He was a practical man, and a very cautious man. He was also a good judge of character, especially when it involved judging when to step innocently around the corner and then run like hell, and he had just decied that he was really unlucky to be standing here and also that it was too late, no matter what he said or what Fenris incoherently tried to say.
"Are you insane?" Fenris asked in annoyance. And so it begun. Varric prayed, with his own words, simply because he couldn't recall any sort of divine text that had anything to do with salvation. Everything else that had to do with damnation seemed to be pretty clear and ripe in his head. Screw the Chant of Light and its fantasy Void. This was something else entirely and much, much worse, his heart beating at a seriously unhealthy rhythm said to him.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Prepare-To-Die, how is this more insane than your bit?" Hawke shouted angrily.
"I'll kill a dwarf, sure," Fenris said and flung his arm out into the direction of Alfie's ghost, "But you see how it is fairly inconvenient for me to kill you."
"Why, I cannot!" Hawke said tauntingly.
"Let us leave." And with that he rolled his eyes. "And I apologize for my impertinent concern."
"How about no," Hawke said cuttingly.
"How about yes, Princess," Fenris fired back, tightening his eyes on her.
"Stop calling me that!" Hawke demanded ruthlessly.
Fenris smirked. "Alright. We return in peace and I will."
"Not a chance!" Hawke shouted.
Fenris pressed his lips and searched his mind. "Please?"
"Please?" Hawke snorted. "Now he says please."
Fenris shrugged. "There is a start for everything."
The four lesser apocalyptical horsemen of Panic, Bewilderment, Anger, and Shouting took control of the area by then.
And with that Hawke clenched her teeth and pointed at him. "You… YOU—you dissembling shard-borne FLAP-DRAGON!"
He was wrong. He was so very wrong. He had considered her loud before, her presence alone and all, but this, this was what Hawke was when she was loud. And for his elven ears, it was doubled, the pain. For his elven heart, seeing her so mad at him, it was times fifty.
"Oh shit…" Varric said. The Red Fury of Ferelden came out. He couldn't think, so he didn't dare utter any other words. Fenris was much brighter than him, he was sure. After all, the brain worked fast when it thought it was about to be cut in half, and currently his was in very grave danger to be so.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Fenris said calmly. What was he doing, he thought to himself. He couldn't possibly be more stupid. Varric seconded.
"I scorn you, Fenris." She raised her hands up to the sky, for the gods to be her witnesses and kept shouting, "Gleeking folly-fallen malcontent!"
Fenris chuckled, defensively. "Is this the legendary hot-headed Ferelden thing you've told me about, Varric?"
She shook her head and harrowed Angry Hell upon him again. "What, you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen Void-hated elf!"
He didn't understand much of that, but he seemed to feel how she felt when he muttered all his Tevinter curses with no willingness to translate.
"We can save time and go and you can curse me all the way back, Hawke," Fenris said while rolling his eyes. This was reasonable. Although to be fair, he was not very good with reason, not in his state. Unlike him, Varric usually didn't verbalize any lousy vibration that passed for thought. They both used their heads all the time of course, but at times such as these, Fenris was using his from a distance of about a mile. Of course, when sober, Varric was usually the one to do the talking in tense situations, and Fenris would be the one to lose patience and demonstrate an unerring ability for violence that wouldn't automatically turn into murder. On the whole, they both agreed Varric would handle the polysyllabic cogitation. None of which seemed to be a reasonable alternative at the moment.
"Oh no." Hawke turned to a calmer demeanor and elusively grinned. "After all you said you faked it with me the last time, Prince. Let's see how much you can pretend now while I'm in pants."
"Oh, I will be faced with increased difficulty, I bet," Fenris said sarcastically.
Hawke narrowed her eyes. "Well, sarge, you know that penalty for absenting yourself in times of war is death."
"But—"
"No buts! I do not wish to hear any more of your buts!" Hawke demanded and she started poking him on the chest as she continued, "I am not being unreasonable here. Upon my oath I am not an unreasonable woman," she gave him three stronger pokes, "but if you ain't fighting me within thirty seconds Fenris I will rip that sodding smartass tongue out!"
"Fine," he said cuttingly.
She walked away and assumed her position, Fenris assumed his, although this in turn was clear, that he was in no state to fight, as he couldn't keep both his eyes open at the same time. Perhaps it was presumed that whence he'd see she was incredibly serious the adrenaline would kick in and he would wake up from his haze. After all, a raging maniacal redhead who could easily rival your swordsmanship and happened to be mad at you was not a sight to simply overlook. And perhaps with that, somewhere down the line, she would probably wake up both from her drunkenness and her daunting thirst for bloodshed. And those were all just happy thoughts deeply locked into another realm.
And so it was, sort of, for Hawke took a bow, Fenris took a bow, and then she immediately bashed into him and he parried with his sword quite fast for an elf who had three unknown bottles of Ferelden booze that could safely be deemed as incurable poison. She knew this bit too well, parrying with the guard against the edge of the enemy's blade you were actually dominating the sword bumping and you could swiftly redirect it at their neck. While pretending to go left, making him cease with the pushing, Hawke pressed against that edge sideways and rolled the sword out of his hand. She caught it swiftly by the hilt as it flew in the air and backed away from him.
"Oh come on, Fenris, you're not even trying," Hawke complained. She threw the sword back at him. "You're making me cry just by looking at you!" She gestured a bring-it-on. "Give me something real to work with!"
"I'd rather just play around and pretend that I lose so we can get it over with," Fenris muttered grumpily.
"Pfew, what a woman!" Hawke shouted joyfully.
"I am not a woman," Fenris said flatly.
"You whine and sound and fight like one," Hawke taunted him. "But this is rather an offence to women even so."
"Alluvin vala kal," Fenris growled.
"Alluvin vala can't get one lousy swing right," Hawke went on.
"Oh piss off," Fenris retorted.
She smiled tauntingly. "Well how can you call yourself a warrior if you don't know how to use a sword?"
"Well, they see the sword and don't attack me," Fenris said sarcastically.
"Yes, but if they did, you wouldn't be any good with it, at least not with people like me it seems," Hawke cut him.
"I'd rather settle for just ripping their heads off," Fenris replied in flat-tone.
"Bring it on, Lyrium Boy," Hawke shouted.
Fenris tightened his eyes and put both hands on the hilt of his sword again. "Fine, Hawke, if you really want a fight, I'll give you one."
"Pfew, finally!" she shouted. "If nothing else worked, I thought I'd have to get on my knees and beg! Kind of like one does with a frigid shrew."
He growled incoherently through his teeth and went for her. This time he parried without losing his guard, caught her hands and pushed his hip into her and tried to disarm her. They almost both fell until she kicked her elbow in his neck, dropping her sword and getting behind him. She immediately grabbed his sword and held it with one hand on the hilt and on the other on the edge against his throat.
"Vishante kaffas," Fenris growled as he tried to get out of her grip, unsuccessfully, for she wasn't playing around and kept the sword right at his neck.
"Bite me," Hawke replied callously.
Varric was battling a heart attack, more so when Fenris took advantage of the fact that Hawke couldn't stand to have her shirt stuffed in her pants for more than two seconds, so he stuffed his hand under it and pinched her skin hard. That made her shout in pain and loosen on her grip of course, so Fenris grabbed her wrist, pulled the sword out and shoved her away.
She took her own sword up from the ground and they continued fighting this time with no chance of either to overpower the other. They pushed swords so strongly while barricading themselves from each other's offence that neither could really try to take a swing or sidestep with a quick spin-and-slash. It became tiring and infuriating, but everything else in the world just didn't seem to matter at that point.
"Venhedis fasta kalumnavoris!"
"Scurvy tickle-brained puttock!"
Varric didn't have any more free spots on his face to hit himself on. He sat down on the grand in the dark alley next to the battle ground with his back against the wall and prepared Bianca for whatever reason he couldn't think about. He tried to calm down, so he imagined a flock of goblins sitting nearby with questioning eyes. He thought to himself, "Well boys, you're probably wondering where we stand in this tale. We are in the deep cack. It couldn't be worse if it was raining arseholes upon us. Any questions?"
After all, this was bound to happen sooner or later, right? You take a bunch of people who don't seem very different from you, calm, cheery or grumpy but all the more crazed with impossible dormant fury, and when you put them all together with booze and a reason to pull each other's eyes out of their sockets, you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem. Except that now the nations were at war, civil war but war nonetheless, and this was in great many ways the most unnerving ludicrous example of the Tevinter—Ferelden battles. If the souls of the dead saw this both sides would have agreed that a fast death by getting a sword in your eye was much better than battling these two nutjobs.
But then again, thinking about the Red Fury of Ferelden and … I don't know, Whitefang the Fuming Doombringer of Tevinter running away from their homes and meeting halfway in Kirkwall just to tear each other apart limb from limb while the world was close to the brink of ruin… Varric imaginatively asked the imaginary goblins, "Guys, do you think it's possible for an entire nation to be insane?"
But the question would remain unanswered by the goblins, for they vanished in the air when Hawke and Fenris came in their imaginary spot. It went, Hawke bumping to the wall, parrying with her sword, and Fenris trying to find a great chance to disarm her, and one point she raised her leg and pushed against him without much success but stubbornly kept it there under her sword so he wouldn't be the in the favorable circumstance of cutting her leg off, all while her having the greatest of chances to kick him in the fracas. Who knew, at this point, even Varric could be fooled by this sight that suggested they were genuinely trying to kill each other.
"Stop it!" Varric shouted. "You've made your point, you're both the best and if anyone dies soon it's just gonna be from utter exhaustion. Maker be my witness, you two would do a hell of a job under the sheets!"
They didn't listen. They probably couldn't even hear.
"STOP IT!" Varric shouted with the most honest air of exasperation out of his lungs. But then he realized this was no battle to get into without outside muscle. He decided this, and quickly vanished in the night to go straight to Aveline and whoever else volunteered to put an end to it.
In the meantime, Fenris's scowl was piercing the wall and could tear down the whole building and only Hawke seemed to be perfectly impenetrable. He took the chance to shove her sword away when she saw Varric leave. That made her bite his arm she finally kicked that leg further in his knackers, without intention. Getting a hold of his sword and forming a barrier with it diagonally as he came back to murder her, she put her leg against his thigh again and said, "Not a step further, elf."
"I do not care for your barriers anymore," Fenris growled incessantly.
"Yes, be like me, without a care for boundaries," Hawke said all-grinning.
"Well what sort of boundaries are there in duels after all," Fenris said.
"I don't know, genitals are off limits?" Hawke said. "As it will be with us should we both survive this fight."
"Was it ever otherwise?" Fenris said with a smirk. "I am most deeply shocked with the news."
"Well you're soon about to go forever blue, and not from those markings," Hawke retorted.
"That's alright," Fenris said, ignoring the sword at his throat entirely. "Seeing you so impossibly red and not from the hair is really warming my soul at the moment."
"Tyeah, your soul," Hawke said with a laugh.
He took the chance to cock her hands and redirected the sword at her throat. "I believe it is difficult for you to conceive of such, since you are in serious lack of one," Fenris said angrily.
"Yes, yes, I'm depraved and shallow and utterly soulless," Hawke said sarcastically, ignoring his bit. "I restored your mansion to mock you, that's it, hand on my heart. Oh jee, why would you look at that. I don't have one. Why don't you shove your fist in there just to be sure?"
"Don't tempt me," Fenris growled.
"Well who's the soulless bastard now what with being so easy to make you murder me it seems," Hawke retaliated.
"It wouldn't be murder," Fenris said. "Not where I'm aiming." He lowered his sword and slashed a part of her – later would find – favorite shirt open. He fixed his eyes on her and shrugged. "Why would you look at that, it seems I am not faking it this time."
Hawke seemed not to form any retort, but become genuinely angrier with what he did. She caught the sword by end, pulled it and used the guard to catch Fenris by the back of his neck on the way. Then she punched him hard.
As he backed away and clamped his face, she shouted, "How did I ever lay my eyes on you, I cannot conceive! What an impudent embossed loggerheaded miscreant!"
She didn't need to see past the hand on his face to know he was now rolling his eyes as he muttered, "Etcetera, etcetera."
"Kind of like your life story," Hawke said mockingly. "It goes on and on, and it was never lived."
"Enough," Fenris growled, revealing an unerring ferocious scowl. He pulled the sword out of her hand, threw it away and foreseeing she would hit him again, he caught her by the wrist, grabbed the other one and crucified her against the wall.
She didn't seem to care.
"You scullion, you eel-skin, you dried neat's-tongue, you bull's-pizzle, you stock-fish!" she shouted, her eyes as angry and deadly as his. Almost literal fumes we coming out of her ears. And the voice was like the look in her eyes. Really present. "Oh for breath to utter what is like you, Fenris! You tailor's-yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck!"
"What an immense vocabulary lesson," Fenris muttered. "You've certainly kept all of this bottled up inside, haven't you?"
"Yes, mind if I get it all off my chest?" Hawke shouted. "It's a great exercise and I've learned it from the best after all. You should do the same."
"No," Fenris said. He didn't want to call her names, but he kept her like that without doing anything violent. What did he want then? He could be impossible sometimes.
"Oh come on," Hawke cried. "Call me a bitch, call me a vicious malignant whoredaughter for restoring your mansion, or better yet for everything I've been doing to you. Everything. Call me a witch, a harpy, a VIPER! It's all in there I know it still is."
"You're none of those things," Fenris said angrily. "What you are however is tremendously infuriating."
"What a shame!" Hawke said mockingly. She tried to get out of his grip and leaned forward. "I thought you were 'still mad at me'. What happened with that?"
Fenris inhaled furiously and shoved her back against the wall. "You happened, again." It was strange to see him this violent yet nonviolent. The best way to describe him would be a terrifically strong golem wearing mittens.
Hawke shrugged and her tone went from angry to sarcastic again, "Well I'm glad I'm happening, unlike you."
"I curse myself for ever kissing your lips," Fenris shouted. "May the gods be my witnesses, I take them all back."
"No backsies, Fenris," Hawke mused and broke into a wide grin. "You'll just have to live with it, and whatever disease I hope I'd given you."
"This already feels like a disease and a curse," Fenris muttered, coming closer to her face. "You are a curse."
"Well I can't wait for it to wither your bones," Hawke fired back, looking him straight in the eye, since the other eye and half of his face was growing purple. She jerked, pretended to try to get her wrists out from his grip again and with this distraction, kicked him in the knee this time, as hard as she could. Now this scenario would have been a lot funnier if he didn't wear those shoes and she could finally teach him a lesson concerning the impracticality of walking barefoot.
She got out of his hands of course, caught him by the shoulders and switched places with him. Up against the wall now and chained in her hands, Fenris started to curse. She was no golem with mittens, but rather like a battalion of angry butterflies, and while pretty and fragile, together they formed a massive body of a lovely and hopping mad butterfly with maniacal slaughter in its eyes and clapper-clawing spiky iron wings.
"The Maker does have a sense of humor doesn't he?" Hawke muttered angrily. "You've come to hate me for all reasons but for being a mage."
Suddenly, Fenris chuckled and shook his head, and his eyes filled with the sort of all-knowing darkness that just looked and felt unnerving even for her. "I've never hated you, Hawke." She frowned of course, and clawed his wrists tighter, but he seemed perfectly content in spite of it. He eyed her dauntlessly and continued, "Not for being a mage, nor for any other reason from the long list of flaws that make up who you are."
"Never, you say," Hawke uttered with narrowed eyes.
He ignored her and went on, "You thought it to be so, you convinced yourself that it is so, even when you called me 'friend'. She tightened her hands on his wrists in irritation, just as he tightened his eyes. "Isn't that right?"
"Wrong, so very wrong," Hawke uttered. "I've always considered you a friend and the only reason I say you hate me is because there is clear evidence now that you do, or is this testament to your undying affection?"
His mind was blank again. He couldn't be tortured by her, belong to her! Have that fragile a creature hold him powerless. But his soul went from fourth gear into overdrive, and other things too. And surely she saw that. She wouldn't miss anything, not her. But she wouldn't let him go.
Fenris didn't even wince, and his eyes fell halfway. "Wasn't it you who called for the duel, Hawke?"
"Correct, Fenris, I called for a duel." She shrugged dispassionately. "Where are the swords?"
"Well I did not call for a punch in the face either but you see how things usually work out in life," Fenris said derisively.
She laughed. "Oh, I see. You did not call for a makeover, and yet you've got two of them and like all the other things that are wrong in your life, I am to blame."
Now he laughed. "May I remind you of a little talk we had not long ago, Hawke?"
"Oh I can't wait to hear this pretentious argument," she muttered grumpily.
"'I might be able to help with your problems, or give you a few more'," Fenris quoted. "Well, do you recall or should I go on?"
"What in the name of—"
Fenris rolled his eyes and continued, "And I said, 'Only a few?' and you said, what, well you said, 'It depends if I really work at it'." He narrowed his eyes and smirked. "You do mean everything you say, don't you?"
"Well now," Hawke said with a grin. "Doesn't that follow that you had allowed me to go forth with it, and my statement also came true?"
"That is exactly my point," Fenris said flatly.
"Then your lashing out on me in your mansion was unjustified, wasn't it?" Hawke fired back.
Fenris shrugged and looked down. "In a way, it was." He looked to his right and said, "In that same way, your lashing out on me now is too."
"Excuse me?" Hawke said in outrage.
Fenris broke into a wide grin and offered the winner of all arguments. "Well, is it not fair that I would also give you some problems, granted not really working at them very hard in my current state?"
Not bad for somebody who could have died five minutes ago. But it was like reinhabiting the situation, to speak, and she must have known that, but it was awful to look right at her and say these things openly, and to keep seeing her so infuriated, and smelling that perfume.
She frowned heavily and shouted, "Take you me for a sponge?"
He didn't know how to answer this, appearing genuinely bewildered. "I… don't?"
"Do not dare logic your way out of this," Hawke said angrily.
He shut his eyes for a second. Do I want her to win this argument? What do I want to happen, and what does it matter what I want!
But he remained amused. "Well if you spend word for word with me, Princess, I shall make your wit bankrupt."
She narrowed her eyes and came closer to his face. "You are a flaming scullion, Fenris. A pigeon-egg and an infirm of purpose. A scurvy rampallian once and a raging fustilarian twice."
"And what, milady?" Fenris said mockingly, his expression becoming flat and cold as he got one hand out and stroke the skin of her back beneath her shirt. "You will tickle my catastrophe?"
"Oh what a mission that would be!" Hawke said contemptuously, appearing as though she hadn't noticed his hand at all. He could feel her anger like it was heat. "Would that I could put you in a cauldron of lead and usurer's grease amongst a whole million of flaming dragons and there boil like a gammon of bacon, that will never be enough."
"Well… thank goodness for that," Fenris said sarcastically, and then with the right possessed hand of his, he slowly lifted one of her legs up beside him. "Your dispassion towards me is utterly clear."
She curled her lips in annoyance and said, "You, Fenris, appear nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors."
Give her a toga or a crown and she would have been the most spirited ruler and spokesman in a thousand years, should she stay drunk her whole life.
"All I understand from that is that my name is indeed, Fenris," he said. He dauntlessly stroked her leg and eyed her with indifference.
"I see what you're trying to do now that anger, strength and logic haven't done you any office with me," Hawke said cuttingly. "Why you subtle, perjured, half-faced scamp."
Fenris smirked a little, then said, "You left out resourceful."
Hawke scowled again and waved a dismissive hand. "It won't work. Your kiss is as comfortless as frozen water is— Fenris rolled his eyes — to a starved snake."
"Yes, yes, whatever," he growled.
Then Fenris launched forward, grabbed her dismissive hand, squeezed her lifted leg with the other one and saw himself kissing her suddenly, subduing her with kisses, and trying so very hard not to rip her shirt off entirely. Time just to enjoy the intensity of the situation, the way it so marvelously suggested the forbidden, even in this forbidden place. He couldn't think of her in any other way, except in his arms with him kissing her. And she could have struck him and he still wouldn't have cared at this point.
He couldn't bring more logic to this than to the general scheme of things that had happened since he went out the Hanged Man up until this point. It was just whole lot of emotion, a lot of undisguised and incomprehensible emotion, and he was not good with emotions. Doubled by the fact that he was certainly not good with surprises like Hawke's unerring metamorphosis into a bowl of anger and hatred and what he could only call a steaming brew of Ferelden curses all because of and directed at him.
Of course, he tried bringing reason into it, but when dealing with Hawke, he always found himself using unfamiliar mental muscles.
He only went ahead and made that little indescribable gesture that said all right to her. And she knelt up and pressed against him, the incarnation of utter longing for him coming out to bite her, and he slipped one arm over her back, across the hot skin underneath. His hand was cold from the fear and she was all hot from the anger. He could see the feeling penetrating her, coursing through her limbs.
Physical affection was never easy with him, though he had come a long way to get used to it, all while he'd never taken her to his bed, not that she seemed to wish it, and not that he ever actually thought to ask, which made for a nice tension. One could learn a lot about sensuality from Hawke just by watching her walk across a room, if you had the eye to spot it. And it was much better than the alternative of having his head ripped off.
Yes, this could teach the gods of war and gods of love a whole new fresh perspective on both subjects. They could teach them how to join forces without it ending in devastation. And having Hawke around for what seemed like ages of friendship and understanding now unraveled and he threw it all away to become this vile, awful, ungrateful person. Or an infirm of purpose, as she said, since all the other words just seemed like the kind you'd come up with by randomly writing blindfolded on a parcel while sniffing up devil dust and powdered copper sulphate.
And what seemed like an eternity was actually no more than seven seconds that it lasted before she pulled away, catching his last breath on her lips and eyed him with somewhat indefinable emotion at that point. He would have picked her up, crushed her to him. But she drew away quickly, and left him sort of shivering on his knees, feeling the warm prickling sensation in his limbs again and that strange numbness in his mouth.
He had that odd desire to speak to her, explain something to her, the same urge that had come over him dime a dozen, and again the anguish—why the hell would she care at this point? He'd disappointed her now more than ever with his blunder. Tomorrow, tomorrow he would have to remember this and explain everything. Not today. Today he wanted to feel her as much as he possibly could.
He followed her eyes and remained silent, waiting. For a moment he couldn't see her clearly. She was all soft at the edges. Then her face burned through. She was a little taken from the exertion, her rouged lips shimmering ever so slightly, her eyes a poor mirror of whatever she was thinking, but full of a vague emotion. She was immovable for a few more seconds, so he went for her again, but she shoved him against the wall and eyed him with an impenetrable expression.
"You are a good man, Fenris" Hawke said. "I'm loathe to kill you."
"You are a good lady, Hawke," Fenris said. "I'm loathe to die."
And with that she came back and nudged at his lips, opening his mouth, and that electric shock came again. His mouth locked tight on her and there came a familiar, but more powerful than ever sensation he had never really quite cared to describe, but now understood, that it was belonging. In a different, infinitely different way than what he had come to understand belonging. It was belonging to her as she belonged to him, and their souls and their bodies were made for one another no amount of inner our outside force could sever this reality. And with that, he kissed her like this was his last moments on earth. He kissed her like he had her on a hook. He could hold her that way, no matter how helpless she had him, that's how strong the current was. He could lift her by the sheer power of it, draw her out of herself, and when through this delirium he felt her breasts pushing against him, he knew he'd done it, that he had her.
And her kiss was hot, and luscious and sweet, far beyond driven. Her nails pinched the flesh on his neck harder, and the nails from her other hand were clawing into his back, but the pain mingled with the force passing out of him into her. She was up on tiptoe with her whole weight against him, the other leg left only for him to support and claw into like a devil going up for the exquisite roundness of her pants. But she didn't allow it. She cocked both his hands and kept them in place against the wall with merciless force. He didn't seem to mind at first. He was feasting on her, his tongue inside of her, and that was enough for the ardent visage that made his case, even with his wrists ground into her restraint trying to break loose beyond his control.
"You're a smart aleck, aren't you?" she said in a low, almost loving voice. "You've got a real smart mouth, smarter than me at times. And you're free. You're not under my command, but neither under your own."
He almost said, "Yes, I am, really, I am. I will leave you be if you let me go", but he didn't say anything at all.
She kissed him again, bringing the tiny hairs up all over his body because it was so maddeningly light. Just a taste of her mouth. Whiff of her perfume again. "We're going to learn a few lessons," Hawke said, "on what happens when you play with the 'hot-headed Ferelden'."
"I am a real fast learner," Fenris said. He turned his head away from her. What the hell was he trying to do? It was bad enough. But he couldn't stand it, the sight of her hair, the red lips and the plunging neck of the blouse.
But then again, his mind was empty and he could have never foreseen that she was about to break him. She left one of his wrists free and caught him firmly down south. And her nails stroke against the fabric delicately, devilishly, and followed the hardness up its length as if they've known it forever. He hadn't the power of mind or else to stop her, even his free hand lost all motion. And she continued kissing him, delicately clamping his lips, and her tongue moving with impossible grace, but it was that of an all-knowing agile serpent tangling itself around the prey. And her nails played down there with the same delicate, serpent-like manner. And he'd never know what to call it, but something entirely foreign, though belonging to him, and mind-blowingly electrical came about. She brushed the nails a bit harder going up, encaged it and pushed a finger against the very top. And with that his breath became a short, but loud profane groan.
Well now… now he was bucked.
Now he pays for it, not just the smart cracks, but having her. That's it, isn't it? He almost cringed. After all, it was his doing. She paid him back with the same dime, and then some. Hawke was not to be played with, not even in her worst state of functioning. And no matter how much you want it or love it, in the end you were the one who loses. And she'd know it to be true. She was the boss.
He stood paralyzed with desire and rage. He was locked out of her, and she was all over him. She looked so feminine and fragile, even with overpowering him, her cheeks beating with a deep flush and the same flush on her throat and what he could see of the cleavage he had made with the sword. He couldn't catch his breath. And he couldn't explain it, but it's as if her lips, her breasts and that devil of a hand were all whispering to him, "It's worse than being whipped isn't it? Being tortured with pleasure?"
He banished the thought. Too gentle, too delicious, and a low buzzing pleasure coursing through his limbs from that one heated little mouth and one fragile little hand. She crushed him totally, and he couldn't do anything with his hands, even if what he wanted to do was destroy what was covering her and touch her all over. The soreness and the desire came in flashes. He let them come and old rhythms started—something bad is going to happen, well, maybe I should really be going now—the low, shuddering alarm. Some fragment of a thought was running through his mind. But you belong to her, he thought. Don't think of anything else. You belong to her, she belongs to you, by choice alone.
In the meantime, she broke the kiss and moved her lips to his neck, biting it in slow motions as if to harrow him.
He thought of her under him again, her toughness and her softness, and that sooner rather than later she will be entirely naked under him if it's the last thing he did, and the boil was rolling. He wanted to say something to her suddenly, pierce the tension. But he didn't dare. And he didn't know exactly what it was he wanted to say.
But then came her actual voice breathing hot air on his neck, and the sound of it was as maddening as everything else of her, "You want me, don't you?"
"Like to ravage you until you cannot walk anymore," Fenris whispered with his eyes closed, without even thinking. They surprised him entirely. And those he would come to understand were the words and the voice of a deeply aroused man with his whole existence going into overdrive.
If he'd even been this hard before he couldn't remember it. If he had ever been teased to this point before, he'd blotted it out.
In a quick darting motion, he caught her mouth again and drew on it before she could get away. She pulled in again, softening all over, that same scorching current running through it, and the kiss almost touched off the bomb. But abruptly, he felt a sort of searing sensation, and the soft, hot weight of her body move away.
"Hawke," he whispered, he didn't even know why.
And she stayed still, very close, looking at him. There was some instantaneous sense of why this was so horrific, that this had in fact, nothing to do with what he had felt before when being subdued, that he was free to do with he wanted and that this was a mage, who though very mad at him now and played with him, did not intend it as mockery and did not command him with anything, and that all her actions in history should they be summed up, meant that this was a woman who wanted all that was best for him. And he hadn't seen it, and he didn't see.
"I'm scared to death for you," Fenris whispered. He could hear the amazement in his own voice He was speaking so low he wondered if she could hear him. "I mean I… this is difficult, it's…"
There was some little change in her face. Some slight snap in her expression. Maker, she was beautiful. It was like in this moment her face opened up, like it became the inside of her instead of what she wanted it to be on the outside world.
She pulled away and he fixed his eyes upon her as she did, searching in it for some answer.
"I am not yours to ravage or to be scared to death for," Hawke said. "So get used to disappointment."
"That's not what I—"
She cut him and said, "And the last lesson is—it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
He frowned, silently demanding more of an explanation.
And she offered him one. "When you are done going into extremes, being pissed at me, grow cold and distant only to become raging jealous and threatening strangers with death on the street at night, doubled by the fact that you are stubbornly keeping your emotions hidden, your past, your feelings, your worries and your doubts, tripled by the fact that you are paranoid and incredibly unreasonable, constructing endless theories on how everything I've done is because you're my 'little project' and that I am disrespecting boundaries and that I shouldn't get into your life because I have no idea what it was like to be in your shoes, I have not been a slave, so I would never understand and I shouldn't try… or that to the contrary, all I do is simply a bit to push you away," she said assertively, eyes narrowed and then she inhaled. "Then buy me a drink and we'll talk. I promise we'll talk all night and the morning after that and day after that and the night after that." She raised her hand, or more precisely, one finger. "'Til then, up yours."
An endless parade of prying noses had suffocated him with lessons and pieces of advice for over a month now, but the last person and the only one to really give it to him was Hawke in the end.
Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
And with that, she grabbed her sword from the ground, made haste away from the dark alley, down the stairs and disappeared.
Fenris sighed. He shuddered, brushed the hair away from his forehead with his arm and with the other tried to lessen the throbbing pulse of his heartbeat. He grabbed his own sword from the ground and asked himself however they ended up in this situation in the first place. Fixing problems with duels, how resourceful. Fixing the duel problem with kisses, how incredibly … how remarkably, tremendously, abhorrently stupid.
Right now, the only thing he wanted to fix was another drink. And a cold one between his legs.
A few minutes later, Outside The Hanged Man
Varric ran into her outside, beckoning for Aveline to go back. "Hawke, what hap—"
She walked past him with her eyes and cheeks completely flushed and said, "He's alive and fine. I won. Don't want to talk about it. Sorry for everything. See you inside."
Another few minutes later, Outside The Hanged Man
If he couldn't get something out of the hot-headed Ferelden, more importantly, if he shouldn't, Varric was going to settle this with someone only slightly more reasonable in his eyes.
He produced a cigar in the time it would take for the other mighty duelist to come back. Blowing up the smoke above his head and leaning against the wall, he really thought about it. In a way, he really was Donnen Brennacovick, in that he was getting really tired and old for this shit.
He tried not to think of the worst possible scenario. Actually he thought what would even be the worst possible scenario. What would be worse? Hawke killing Fenris or Fenris killing Hawke? Or both dying from exhaustion, or getting killed by a band of street thugs because they were distracted and exhausted? What would he even do without them?
And what the hell was Hawke on about. Why… how… he wouldn't even think. He shuddered, shivers going down his spine, remembering how horrifying shouty beast she turned into.
Something of an ancient philosophy of his came back in his worried mind. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a person has you entirely at their mercy, then hope like hell that person is an evil person. Because the evil like power and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk, they'll gloat and they'll shout endless witty one-liners at you. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of the kill like another man will put off a good cigar on a rainy day. So hope like hell your rival is an evil person. A good person will kill you with hardly a word.
If Hawke was saying he was fine, though it was arguable as to how one should define fine, then this summed up as a pretty good Tuesda—Wednesday. And he wouldn't mind if she was only a bit evil, and not that good this time.
And then he saw something coming out of the shadows, something white, tan, scurvy and a bit purple under the eye that was stumbling and almost literally dragging itself in his direction. Upon coming closer, he saw that it was Fenris, limping, and the purple thing on his face was quite the fine bruise under his eye, and the one eye was half-closed. His shirt and pants and shoes however were clean, neat and sparkly. Hawke was so thoughtful.
"What the hell happened to you?" Varric shouted in amazement.
"Hawke happened," Fenris muttered in a low voice and he shrugged. "She's a very happening girl."
"I'll say," Varric said, and he couldn't help but snort a little and chuckle. "You've got beaten up by a girl."
"What stands as girl and what stands as Hawke are entirely different things when it comes to combat… and almost everything as a matter of fact," Fenris said defensively.
"Well that's a better argument than 'I let her win'," Varric said.
"She didn't win," Fenris said, his eyebrows frowning. "Not the duel. And this isn't over."
"Yes it is," Varric said and formed a barrier with his arm to block his way. "Yes it is."
"No it is not," Fenris hissed.
"You're quickly getting on my nerves, elf," Varric pressed angrily with his arms crossed.
"Well, it's not as if I needed a ladder or anything," Fenris mumbled arrogantly, stumbling on his feet.
"You're drunk, Lord," Varric said, stretching his arms out and his voice became only a bit softer. "Tomorrow is another day. Even if tomorrow is technically today already."
"Sad isn't it?" Fenris drawled and swayed on his feet.
"That you're both idiots?" Varric asked directly, his voice becoming more cutting now.
Fenris narrowed his eyes and took a step forward as he articulated, "You don't know us."
"Friend, you don't know a thing about a woman until she's drunk and mad at you," Varric pressed again angrily, pointing at him and the bruise under his eye. "You've got your answer, now cool off."
"I must have blacked out when that answered arrived into the harbor of my reason," Fenris muttered rather calmly, looking up in the night sky and getting lost in it, about to fall.
"What the hell is going on in that little forsaken mind of yours?!" Varric shouted at Fenris and was about to hit him.
"Nothing," Fenris articulated flatly, trying to keep straight.
"Exactly, you are most right, Sir!" Varric exclaimed in anger. "You ignore her all night and go bananas the minute she talks to a guy. And then she beat the crap out of you. So either quit your act or stay away from her, you hear me?" he shouted. "I don't want drama on my fucking name day. Is that clear?"
A few seconds passed, and Fenris finally curled his lips and nodded with a slight hint of irritation, "Affirmative."
"Good," Varric muttered with narrowed eyes. "You're my friends and my affection for you both stretches out of cosmic proportions, but this is ridiculous."
"I know," Fenris answered quietly. "It is my fault. I will leave her be."
"Whatever you do, just don't screw this up. Not tonight, I mean…" Varric scratched his head and paused, looking away from him. "I've been cheering for you for as long as I can remember."
"Oh?" Fenris asked in surprise, leaning on the wall, half about to fall.
"Not the time for heart-breaking stories, elf," Varric said charmingly. "Come on, let's get you inside. And hands off the yahoo-juice."
"The what?" Fenris drawled as he stumbled into Varric.
He caught the elf in place and dragged him inside, "That."