I know the chapters are smaller, but I'm excited to post and I'm trying my best to squeeze time for it, worried I might not get to finish this chapter until July when I'm done with my exams. Briefly enjoy my brief chapter!

The Keep had seen better days.

The premises had been swallowed by an unexpected display of barbaric indignation, its roar choking the thumping gavels. People came out of the courtroom, voices barking left, right and centre. They trial had come to an early halt as a result of Hawke's scandalous divulgence.

Whether the act of daring to divulge was scandalous or the truth was scandalous in itself was a matter of great unimportance to such a fuming crowd, whose overwhelming reaction became impossible to control.

More so, whatever point Meredith needed to make, it would have to wait. The woman was a boiling cauldron, beckoning angrily for her people. It produced three Templars. Fenris was dead-set on attempting to discern what she was saying, but the crowd made a riotous amount of noise, advertising far and wide its discontent.

Then Meredith went right past them, ignoring their indignant and imperious voices, moving through a cut-out as the guardsmen came from both sides, merely standing there, without a doubt the embodiment of a polite warning.

Fenris saw Seneschal Bran getting out with a haunted expression. He was followed into his office predatorily by Meredith and the Templars. On what pretext could he enter? To offer his help? His ... condolences? Bran knew he was devoted to Hawke, and he would be very surprised if the Knight-Commander wasn't already acquainted with details of all of their personal lives, their locations, their dealings, their origins… Good God, what should he do under normal circumstances, if he wasn't … Don't think about it, don't ever clearly dwell upon it, not here, not within these halls.

As he glanced up, Fenris saw Hawke rushing towards them with marvellous energy.

"What a riot, didn't know these fat lords had it in them," Varric said.

"I know, how unspeakably rude of them," Hawke said with thinly concealed pride.

"I don't know if I should be happy or mortified, to be honest," Varric said, looking left and right at people. With one heightened eyebrow, he said: "I hope you have a plan."

"I don't have a plan," Hawke said cheerfully, jerking her head to the crowd. "It makes itself as I go along."

"So you rallied up some nobles," Fenris said disapprovingly. "Do you think they will be as demonstrative when she cuts Dumar in half, too?"

"That would not be the worst thing in the world," she said. "But no, it will not come to that. She can't afford to. Not now."

"How so?" Fenris asked.

"Because if she beheads the boss, the Qunari will see no reason not to take over. The Arishok already thinks this town is a joke. Meredith can't wage a war to change government. I'm not the Viscount; if she goes after me, that's not big enough an argument to extend on Kirkwall itself. I'm just a woman who bought a noble title and couldn't keep her mouth shut. She needs to make it seem as if the people need the Templars, that they are credible, surely irreplaceable, and that Dumar is a fool. Right now, the reverse is taking place. In other words—"

"She needs to play nice from now on," Fenris completed. "Because of you."

"Also, Dumar is safe either way."

"Why?"

"Because I'm pretty sure Aveline will come any minute now on behalf of the Viscount to arrest me," Hawke said and winked. "Act surprised."

"For what?" Varric asked in outrage.

"Conspiracy, instigation to violence, being in contempt, take your pick," Hawke said aloofly.

"You didn't say or do anything offensive," Varric said in indignation.

"Oh, but that's not how the world works. It matters not if the construction of your words are naturally or deliberately offensive. Feeling offended is enough ground to justify the first punch."

"This is so bad," Varric said, trying to mask his anxiety.

Fenris had to take a step in front of her to get her attention. "Will we come to—"

"No," she stopped him abruptly. "You are not to interfere with this. When they take me, if they do, let me serve my at best 24 hour sentence. Some will make a fuss over it, but it will make Dumar look like he's stuck between hammer and anvil and is just doing his job."

"For once," Varric commented peevishly.

"Yes, well, if there's any time to act the part, it's now," Hawke said and smiled. "I made sure of that."

"I talked to Aveline before this," Fenris said. "She had claimed not to have known what was about to transpire here."

She gave Fenris a look. "Don't even attempt to go near Bran or Aveline. Just go home, pretend nothing of importance happened. In fact, it's best if we avoid each other for the next few days—"

"A word?" Aveline said in regimented haste.

"Only if it comes with a celebratory toast," Hawke said, playing dumb.

"Now," Aveline said curtly. "Not you two," she said towards Fenris and Varric. "Go escort Leandra home safely, will you?"

"Right, boss," Varric said sarcastically. But they didn't go right away.

Aveline pressed her lips, tense with what she was about to do. "Lady Amell, you are under arrest for being in contempt of the court." It was not difficult to imagine this was conveniently done in front of everyone to see. Aveline restrained her, but the force in her hands was laughable. "Do you know your rights, milady, or shall I tell them to you?"

"I have the right to not much at all, really?" Hawke said dispassionately.

"You can remain silent," Aveline said. "Try new things once in a while."

The Hanged Man, 4 P.M.

There was a distinct air of unease and jumpiness in the Hanged Man when Varric and Fenris came in. In fact, shortly after they entered, one memorable contact of Varric's rushed to ask them if they'd "heard". Varric said yes he'd heard, he's seen in fact. They urged him to tell the story. He said he didn't feel like it. There was general gasping and puffing.

"Come on, let's have a drink upstairs— anything."

Fenris followed listlessly.

They drank and played a game in complete silence. Upon the second game, a knocking that seemed unsure of itself came at the door.

Varric was unresponsive. Fenris said: "Unless you are selling something, identify yourself."

"I-I don't suppose I am. It's Merrill. Or code name Daisy? Is there a password now?"

"Oh, Daisy," Varric whispered. "Let her in for me, will you?"

Fenris scowled.

"I said 'will you', like, in these parts, that's code for 'please'," Varric snapped.

"Let the blood mage come in, sure, that will definitely make the spies go away," Fenris said.

"Don't be paranoid," Varric said austerely.

"Difficult to be so when it is essentially true," Fenris retorted.

"You can see yourself out then, for your own safety," Varric said.

Staring tensely at him, Fenris took a slight breath and got up to open the door for her.

"My neighbours are yelling and holding all sorts of speeches around the Vhenedahl," Merril said, looking at Fenris who looked at her. "What's happening?"

"Does it look like I am holding a stack of The Elven Post going 'extra, extra, read all about it!'? Fenris said sarcastically.

"We have a newspaper? Do you need to go sign up for it somewhere, is that why I don't get it?"

"No, Daisy," Varric said, hand across his face. "He's being a dick."

"Oh, I wonder why people usually avoid you," Merrill said, scowling.

Varric told her what happened.

"Arianni was just scared for her son," Merrill said in discontent, sipping from a cup of tea. "Although I understand why he ran. He was never truly welcome, never treated as one of their own, people always stared."

"Of course out all of this the mage decides to sob over the apostate," Fenris said grumpily.

"I am telling you what I know," Merrill said.

"What you know is irrelevant," Fenris said. "This whole mess started because of his foolish actions."

"Oh, golly, and here I thought you would blame the mage's mother because she simply dared to give birth to him."

"Yes, I condemn a mother for loving her idiot son," Fenris said sarcastically. "How well you know me."

"I am so sorry for her," Merrill said. "This is unacceptable. The Templars should not be so blinded by hate towards our kind."

"I'm fairly certain cutting your wrists will not even begin to change that," Fenris said.

"I admire Hawke for what she did," Merrill said, as if she hadn't heard that. "I wish I had the guts to stand up for my people like that."

"Cut those too, did you?" Fenris said, chin atop his hand.

"Enough of that, you asshole," Varric snapped, truly annoyed now. This was immensely unlike him.

"Very well," Fenris growled, stood up and went for the door.

"Ma banal las halamshir var vhen (You do nothing to further our people)," Merill said in an evidently spiteful tone.

Fenris stopped in his place.

"Merill, you humiliate me. I despise you. I am ashamed that I share a species with you. Your people detest the world, they detest themselves, detest all races and titles, and in fact by that very hatred you prove to be the most arrogant beings I've ever seen. There is nothing more disgusting than your foolish, rotten pride, so full of yourselves you are, so full of confidence by virtue of your age old oppression as if you are made from the stuff of saints, nothing more or less than thinly veiled hypocrisy. I am not your lethallan. I will never be your lethallan. Guilt someone else into serving the dead."

He slammed the door on his way out.

He didn't have a choice. Stuck between the devil and the deep sea, what was he left to do but this? Oh, he only wished he would have done it sooner.

The clouds gathered angrily on the charcoal sky as Fenris was walking down, or rather up the path to Sundermount. By the time he reached the mountain, the wind was climbing up the career ladder and turning into a storm.

He cursed.

He wished he'd brought Isabela with him. She was the last of them to jump through mental hoops about it or hang onto some unearned sense of moral superiority. He didn't like her, but that was just a useless aspect that got in the way in times of war. He would have asked her, but the broad kept to herself, at times greatly lost in her own thoughts and he barely saw her places anymore.

He should have gone to the Templars first. Oh, how he wished he did. Oh, how he wished they were not a bunch of incompetent, depraved, corrupted, uncut fetch-and-carries to Meredith's whim. He didn't care about what they would do to Feynriel, but he did think something of what they could do to him, even if he presented himself as a stranger on their side. Deep down, he also did not want Hawke to know this was his doing.

He felt like he was a maniac, that he could be driven to lie, to twist, to sabotage reality just a little bit for the near swoon which Hawke's smile could produce in him. He looked up at the sky. It was smoky, starless, the clouds blowing fast from the direction of the river.

The sentinels had already spotted him, and by the look of the one and only guard standing and waiting to roll out the red petunia beds for him, he started to recover his temper. Torches burned all around him, as Keeper Marethari herself walked towards him. Her face was small, oval, her eyes were round and extremely large, withered by old age. Her skin was so white, so totally without a touch of humanity that it sent a chill through him. But her expression, which manifested itself almost entirely by a smile, was cordial and curious in the extreme.

Leaning on her staff, her arm covered in unusual bracelets, the Keeper looked up at him.

"Fenris," she said in cultured and perfect trade tongue, her voice as friendly as her face, "You read my camp and my trees as if they were a book."

"It seemed like the polite thing to do," Fenris said half sarcastically.

"And you long for old Tevinter," she said, "for the fresh air and sea of Marnus Pell, the majesty of the Hundred Pillars, and for the domes and ancient highways of Minrathous, where you once lived."

She'd plucked this knowledge from his deepest memories. This was a formidable mage, if not simply playing some cruel farce on his mind.

"I wish I could say I bid you welcome here," she said in the kindliest of tones, "but it is my clan and I am not altogether pleased that you are here."

"You mean, you are not entirely pleased because I come alone," Fenris said.

"I am sure there are reasons for that which I would gladly listen to, if only we'd sit down at the warmth of our fire."

"I am not here to chit chat about my grievances. I want to see the boy, Feynriel, and tell him of what has become of his mother."

Something in the elven woman's face moved as if he had confirmed an old suspicion.

"Tell me and I will make sure to pass that information to the boy," she said.

Fenris stopped the instinctual urge to scowl. His cool, polite expression gave a trustworthy tone to this words: "I would rather he heard it from me."

The bent and withered old men were shaking their heads and very forlorn.

Then he remembered these people craved respect like a whore that gave it for free.

"Ir garas vhen'alas. Andaran atish'an (I came here, to your holy earth. I dwell in this place of peace)", he said.

Marethari gave him a strange look, curious, sceptic, but not hateful, perhaps trying to search further into his soul, find the pearls and steal them. He closed his mind.

"Very well," she said, without emotion this time. "Wake him for us, lethallan," she said to one of the men.

When Feynriel came out of one of the tents, Fenris felt annoyed to recognize him. It was like a weed you cut and threw away, but it found itself back to you, causing trouble because of its nature, feeding off your best efforts.

"A word in private, if I may?" Fenris said.

Numerous sets of eyes came upon him untrusting and displeased.

"It is not exactly news to cheer about in collective joie de vivre," Fenris said, supressing his emotions. "We will not leave anywhere."

"Ma melava halani (You helped me)," the Keeper said stoically. "Ma nuvenin, ma falon (As you wish, my friend)".

"Ma serannas," Fenris said, his voice deep.

She touched Feynriel on the shoulder like a mother would, and then left them, beckoning for the elves to follow suit.

His hair was blond and full and matted to his damp forehead. In fact, he looked feverish and restless.

"I remember you," Feynriel said with a curious verve in his eyes.

"You do?" Fenris said, jerking his head subtly for them to start walking.

"You're the one who cursed a lot," Feynriel said inoffensively.

Hawke crushed into the chair and almost fell backwards on it. The room smelled like dirt, sweat and sewage, perhaps intentionally being designed this way to make people crack sooner.

Aveline walked around the table, hand over sheath, and after several moments of fuming silence, she spoke: "What were you thinking, Hawke?"

"When? Today?" she said. "I was thinking you should redecorate. It's not every girl's dream to be stuck with you in a tight room that smells like the collective armpit of the City Guard."

"It's probably the rotting corpse of your privilege you threw down the drain," Aveline said.

"Isn't it nice when we share?" Hawke said flippantly, pressing her crossed arms against her chest.

The door opened before Aveline could smack her. Guardsman Donnic looked at them with a blockage in his throat. "Guardsman Kendrick is being held up in a civilian dispute. I was sent to take his place."

Well that was impossible. A second interrogator just for this sheer formal slap on the wrist? Someone was making sure where Guard Captain's loyalties were.

"Very well," Aveline said, hands resting in a dominant way atop the table. "I was just about to start the questioning."

Hawke could not betray Aveline's affections or betray the plan she had worked so hard at. She beheld the Guardswoman, drawing herself out, all memories, emotions and past experiences, every game and walk and discussion they had.

"Not before she showed me the firm hand of the law," Hawke said accusatorily. "I've just come from accusing the Templar Order of mishandling citizens. Do you think I'm afraid of going after the City Guard for the same offense?"

"I'm sure there must have been a grave misunderstanding," Donnic said.

Hawke raised her eyebrows and laughed. "I know the law like the back of my hand, pal. Try me."

"I just pushed her down the chair. She's probably low on blood sugar from all the quarrelling."

While looking at Aveline, Donnic said: "We know you're not evil, Serah Hawke. I can firmly say I wouldn't be here if it were not for you. We have no ill intent, we just want you to answer some questions."

Hawke smirked. "Oh, I get it. Good cop, bad cop, eh?"

"Sure," Aveline said. "But we're a bit short staffed right now, so if I give you a cigarette do you mind punching yourself in the teeth?"

"I feel like I should have grown a magnificent beard by now and complain about all the filthy immigrants stealing our jobs. Are you going to question me, or not, Guard Captain?"

"Lovely," Aveline said. "When were you born?"

Hawke sighed, as if she were disappointed with the question, and looked up reflectively. "A demon impregnated my mother one summer's eve. Nobody had the heart to tell my father."

"Oh Maker, what will I do with you," Aveline said angrily.

"You can give me a suspension," Hawke replied. "Oh wait, that's right… you aren't the boss of me. So I guess you can just bite me."

Aveline smiled. She threw Hawke in a cell.

A few heads popped up between the iron bars after she left her there.

"Oh, don't judge me," Hawke said to the prisoners. "You're not here because you got caught helping the poor."

"I cannot believe what I've done. Oh by the Dread Wolf, I have to turn myself in! You must take me there!" Feynriel shouted. His mind was a jumble of frantic thoughts, and he seemed unable to think of any course to save himself.

Fenris was a little thrown off. The mage saw reason, in spite of his sudden anguish. This perplexed Fenris. He thought he had to utter the most preposterous fallacies to convince Feynriel to come with him, or threaten him, but the boy was altogether ready to give in.

"You do not care to save your own skin?" Fenris asked, cursing his curiosity. He had him, and he could've have just given him incentive to reconsider.

"No! Not when I will be the death of the only woman who cared for me!" Feynriel said. "Please. She works so hard, she went through so much with me. She deserves a good life."

Something twirled in Fenris' soul, an inexplicable sensation, like a deja-vu, an old specter grappling onto his chest, and he was filled with sorrow. He could not make heads or tails of this gush of irrational sentiment, so he closed his mind again.

"Very well," Fenris said. "We shall depart."

Not one step further did they walk that a sudden wall of vibrant greenery, thorns and flowers grew in front of them as if time accelerated by a million, blocking their path completely.

"Do reconsider," a voice came from behind, which could not have been possible.

Fenris turned around edgily. "It is his will," he said.

"Keeper, please," Feynriel cried. "You must understand."

"I understand," the woman said, standing straight. She fixed her eyes on Fenris. "There are things, however, that you are a stranger to, da'len."

Oh, now he was the child. He knew the smug sense of superiority would have to come at some point.

"Should I even bother guessing?" Fenris said impassively.

"Feynriel, please let us speak alone. I promise this is not the end of it," she said.

The boy had no patience, but it was evident that the elders had thought him discipline in these last three years. He complied and left, no matter how much he was blowing up inside.

The Keeper looked at Fenris. "If you let the boy give himself to the Templars, only peril and chaos will become of it," she said in a grave tone.

"Just say it," Fenris said harshly.

"He is not like your ordinary mage. He is Somniari," she said.

He scowled. "You must be joking."

He'd heard it all before. Special types of mages of all kinds, such was the fascination imbued in Danarius' research. Anything out of the ordinary to dissect and reverse engineer for his obsession. He'd taken one Somniari girl under his wing. She was not a slave, at first. She came from a Soporati family, her father selling her to Danarius as soon as she proved to be inadequate in stepping up the social ladder. The first week, all the fish suddenly died. The week after that, thirty slaves grew mad and panicked. They had to burn the witch along with them. He remembered it bitterly—the screaming, the crying, the blackened ground, nightmares about the fires. He hadn't thought about it in years but he could still see the thicket of blackened stakes, the images of men and women and children burnt alive. The final horror to apprehend was that they had all died for nothing.

"Is there any mage in this area who is not a damn ticking time bomb?" Fenris snapped.

"If you know the meaning of my words, then you must understand why he should not leave," Keeper Marethari said.

"He should not stay here either," Fenris barked. "What do you know of Somniari? Tales and legends, at best."

"I know one thing," the woman said. "There are great demons that plague his soul. He must fight them before we begin clashing with each other violently in words."

Not one feature moved on Fenris' face.

"It would be my sincerest of suggestions to consider sending word to your friends."

An old, withered woman she was, and by some indefinable tangle of considerations in her mind, he knew she had given this a lot of thought. But the hearing of this was maddeningly imprecise. Then the immediate malice he felt towards her, or rather, the hearing of those words, came like a heat of a stove. His eyes raced over her image and form. The hatred boiled, crested.

"Thousand year old dragon witch and now a soon to be Somniari abomination?" Fenris said. "You must enjoy a special kind of self-flagellation in your spare time."

"It matters not what I enjoy," she said stoically. "I matter little, on the whole."

"What makes you think I will even consider helping you?" he said with clear revulsion pouring through his teeth.

"Because you have no reason not to," she said, smiling. "You are not going anywhere, are you?"

"Watch me, old hag," Fenris said in a cruel, deadly tone and turned his back on her. He spat right after he was outside the camp.

A few days had surely passed, during which Fenris did not leave his house, except for the present one, when the level of anger and anxiety in his veins intermingled to the right amount that he had to see if Hawke was back and safe in her home. It was Leandra who he ran into as she was going out, rather fancily dressed and pampered. She told him not to worry, that Hawke had hired swords to guard the mansion and that they still agreed to the money even after she had grinded them for three hours about the error in their techniques and how much finesse they lacked.

He went home, bitter and lost in his thoughts, trying to replace old thoughts with better ones and truly failing.

Finally, he resorted to wine to put an end to the worthless weave of pure hatred in his soul. He went down fast and the night was his duchess.

It was when a hand grabbed at his waist that he woke up, wrapped around a blur and burning wooziness that he had to blink several times to see. He struggled to look clearly through the darkness, half afraid of what he would see.

Of course he was very drunk now.

And the impression he got was of something struggling, weak and lifeless, and yet her face was as animated as it had ever been. Huge eyes, noble nose and the mouth of a jester's smile. Her hair was a gleaming mass of darkness flowing down over her shoulders and her arms.

As far as Hawke was concerned, she did not know why she went through the trap door again, or why Fenris hadn't blocked the other end by now. She was tired, the amount of self-control she was forced to command had drained every bit of life from her, that she found herself walking into his room and resting on the bed as if it were nothing. She just wanted to sleep. Explanations later.

Yet there was an undeniable pleasure in seeking out the vast warmth of his body, something sweet and mysterious in crossing that expanse of cold floor, opening doors, to approach the bed.

She thought that he laughed. It was a strange and cruel one.

He grabbed her, but it was not affectionate. She gave a low roar of angry terror and tried to scramble off the bed, but his grip grew more powerful and cold than she'd ever felt.

"Fenris?" Hawke tried to say in the sweetest voice permissible to the situation. "Are you okay?"

"Of course," he said. Fenris' gaunt face loomed right above her, his lips drawn up sharply into his cheeks, and he laughed again a low riotous laugh that seemed endless. Hawke was unsure at that point about the nature of his actions, so she thought it was time to slap him out of it. And although his body was merely something drunken and sluggish, his limbs found animation all at once and caught her hand as it came to his face.

She struggled, pushing at him uselessly. "Hell's sake, Fenris!"

He clapped one of those monstrous hands over her mouth.

"No more of that in my presence, Hawke," he said with a little sneer. "Hmm? Answer me. Hmmm?"

Hawke nodded and he loosened his grip.

His voice had a momentary calming effect. Fenris sounded capable of reason when he spoke. He sounded almost classy.

He lifted his fingers and stroked her hair as she cringed.

"Flame in the hair," he whispered, "and the wet grass and earth fixed forever in your eyes." He seemed almost meditative as he looked at her. His breath, however, reeked of wine, so did his clothes that he went to bed with.

"Maker, you stink," Hawke said.

Why did it horrify her so much? She knew this man, he wouldn't dare. Regret and longing haunted his green eyes in the darkness that she couldn't account for. It fascinated her. Well, as fascinated as her position could allow her to be, considering she was too much in danger to allow such a strange state of mind.

"Fenris, look at me," Hawke said. "Look at me." She nodded with her eyes fixed upon him. "I'm here because I felt like it. I'm not your enemy. I just wished to sleep."

"With me?" He gave a deep short laugh now, his knees wide apart, his fingers cupping her cheek and her hip, as Fenris made a great arc over her.

It came to that blood rush of self-preservation in her limbs that Hawke raised her knee and kicked him in the gonads.

At that point, it seemed all the life in him had gathered in his stomach, abandoning his lungs and his extremities, engulfed in a world of pain and leaving him an awkward falling blob of bones. She caught him and threw him on the side, a little disgusted with herself.

"Maybe some other time," she said sweetly, deciding not to leave and make it seem as if this was a big deal. After all, it was unwise, what she did. "Are you okay?"

His near-lustrous hair and his head shook left and right in the pillow where his face was buried, his hands cradling his crotch as if it were about to leave the land of the living.

"Well, now that you're at the very least physically incapable of being a huge creep," Hawke said, her voice tender, trying to make light of it, "I wished to see you and tell you I appreciate that you haven't done anything stupid. Hadn't", she corrected herself.

His head remained still for a few moments, then his white hair moved in a nodding way.

"And to say it's been dreadful these past few days," she said.

His hair nodded in the pillow again.

"And that I… sort of missed you," she finished, suddenly feeling an immense snow storm in her throat.

His hair didn't move. The sound of his dark chocolaty voice came muffled: "Well, you definitely helped perish the feeling for me, in more ways than one."

Hawke snickered. "I am, so not sorry."

"We might not have babies because of this," he muffled through the pillow.

Hawke's eyes almost came out of their sockets. "Believe me, Fenris, that is not the reason we will not have babies."

A few moments passed for the silent head in the pillow. "I will not remember this tomorrow," he mumbled.

Hawke's cheeks pressed upwards helplessly and she messed up his hair in a caring fashion. "Ooph, lucky bastard," she said in a voice one might use with a child.