IMPORTANT NOTE: I want to thank you for your kind words and your loyalty to this fanfic. I have finally finished my degree, summa cum laude even! I've got big plans for the next chapters. Oh yes. Back with full force.

The following day, Fenris woke up with a massive headache and a dry, bitter taste in his mouth. He sank down into the washbasin long enough that he could fall asleep in it. He felt very dirty, very aware of his body for some reason.

He mentally prepared himself as he sat back against the side of the tub with his arms out resting upon the edge. His hair was wet and clinging to his neck and shoulders. He felt as if someone was watching him.

When he got out of the tub he saw his form in the tall mirror, his hair wet and in loose strands over his eyes, his body gleaming in the morning light, never mind the wretched yet graceful weave of white markings, the lack of body hair that annoyed his masculine ego to no end, his built and broad shoulders catching his wet hair, and his...well, and his thick thigh muscles, which in turn he was rather proud of.

Nevertheless, he felt ashamed. As if the mirror were a criminal, he turned his eyes away.

He felt a peculiar urge to dress nicely.

He rummaged through the limited variety of wear he owned and after a few awkward attempts, he engineered something that he resolved to call practically elegant.

That constituted in the mirror as a vibrant blueish green shirt under his usual black vest, he wore his silver gauntlets, but underneath were longer black leather gloves that had two black straps criss-crossing around his elbow area. He'd put on a pair of black pants, not his usual ones, but it didn't make much difference other than the fact that they were more comfortable to walk in. He put his utility belt around his waist, just in case and put on those… boot-shoe things…

Envisioning his reflection, even he would admit walking barefoot dressed like that would have looked scummy. He tilted his head. He did not look hideous. Strange.

He left and then turned back around and attached the Amell crest to his belt. Templars be damned, he had nothing to hide.

Snatching a gazette from a hawker on the street, Fenris was able to read a considerable amount of gossip and stingy headlines, but nothing of substance even so. The next phase in the trial was not for another month, and that gave them time to devise a strategy.

The sky seemed a limitless blue, and all up and down the street the red awnings were aflutter in the warm breeze. Hawke's windows were crowded with fresh summer wallflowers. It would've been a lovely sight if not for the few dozen people blotting most of it out and shouting in his face.

An auburn-haired and bearded man fixed his eyes on him and pointed. "Will you be silent? SHOOSH!" All eyes were on him. "Would you be so kind good sir to summon your mistress, we've been here for an hour and these mongrel dog lords are not even trying to give her word."

Fenris suppressed the instinctive cringe, but of course, inertia did not just happen in the limbs. At least he didn't go out of his way to explicitly call him "servant". He elbowed his way through the crowd until he reached the door guarded by the hired swords.

"Her… ladyship," he said, concealing his annoyance, "is under the weather. You are only creating ghoulish noise here that will not hasten her recovery. I suggest you leave and come back another time."

"Please!" another bearded nobleman said. He extended his hand to Fenris giving him a piece of glistening paper. "At least give this to her ladyship. She must honour us with a visit!"

He looked over it for maybe a second. It was an invitation to a ball, a ball that was only a comfortable place to have that political gathering nobody wanted anyone to know about. He wanted to throw it away.

"Very well. Now leave," Fenris said in a respectfully lethal tone.

How is it that they just obeyed his, at best… rude suggestion? They must have respected Hawke with a fear one should reserve for dragons.

"You're Fen Fen, rye'?" a Ferelden voice said behind him.

Fenris turned around with an irritated expression. "Yes, something to that effect," he said, his voice deep and grumpy.

"It 'as to be. If there's another elf with 'air like snow around heeyah, you can smack me arse and call me Anora," the other said in a much harsher Ferelden accent and laughed with the other, then stopped. "Oi mean no offense, serah. I'm slowly ge'ing there meself," he said, pushing his helmet up to show strands of grey hair.

"Yes, that's the same thing," Fenris said sarcastically.

"It isn't? Do you dye it or something?"

"No, it's— will you let me in already?"

"Aye, serah." The Southerner opened the door. "I tole you to stop me when I start being awkward, you fockin' cunt."

The other scuffed. "Oi would never dare to interrupt you from making a fool out of yerself. It's the highlight of me job."

Their voices could still be heard from the hallway.

"Shut ya fockin' skullcap, stop talking pish."

"I'll do yew with fockin' no arms, mate, just sit and wobble me fockin' stumps and knock yew clean oyte."

"Just fock reyt off, ya fat grape."

Hawke met him in the hallway, snorting as soon as she saw him. "Oh." It was an embarrassed snort. "Oh my."

"Is something the matter?" Fenris said impassively.

He was utterly handsome. She had to blink several times.

Fenris stood there, seemingly inanimate, scanning her eyes.

"No, it's just—"

"Oi, Oi'll beat ya with yer mama's wooden leg, ya fockin' munter."

"Ye leave me mom oyte of this, ya fockin' shmeal."

"Shmeal my balls, ya cunt."

"Oi'll bend you over and stick this gong in yer arse, ya stinkin' canopy of shyte!"

"I imagine you must have been desperate," Fenris said.

Hawke made a dismissive gesture. "They're just Ferelden. That's how men express their deep affection back home."

Perhaps what he needed to do to win her trust was to smash a chair over her head.

"Can I do one thing? Just—". She came closer and took him faintly by the shoulders. "It is time you divorced this hunchback posture."

Fenris straightened up. She smelled like the deep winter, if the deep winter were being assaulted by a swarm of red blossoms. Or at least that was what he imagined it would smell like.

He stood over her, searching her eyes, fastidiously serene of a statue that he was. At last, a word warranted substantial emphasis. Over her. This must have never happened before or she had never truly noticed.

With his back straight as a spear, Fenris was very tall. His height comfortably matched her brother's. Her eyes moved slowly over the finely tailored black vest, the gleaming colour of his shirt, the straps around his arms, the tall imposing legs, and back up at his eyes, his luminous white hair falling behind and in front of his long ears, the white tips at the back innocently touching the edge of the collar.

It took her breath away to see him look down at her intently.

"Cup of tea?" Hawke said all of a sudden, clearing her throat and scratching her head.

Her hair was in a long tail as usual, but loose wavy strands of red fell at the sides of her face.

Fenris wanted to kiss her, or at least put out his arms, rather tentatively, politely, so that she could get away if she wanted, but he didn't.

They walked towards the barren fireplace where cups of tea waited on the table near a vase of white lilies.

"I'm beginning to think this sort of barbaric dialogue takes to your fancy, Hawke," Fenris said jokingly, as he sat down.

"I can't help it," she said happily, wrapping her fingers around her cup. "There's something about the baseness of their character that makes me want to just… teach them some proper syntax," she said, making a harsh grabbing gesture.

Fenris snickered, if shortly. He rested an ankle over his other knee and his head tilted against his hand. "I did not realize I had competition," he said, a deep caramel voice coming out.

"I did not realize you were in the competition," Hawke said flippantly.

He grinned, half-lidded eyes lingering on her, head still tilted against his hand. "Perhaps that is my strategy," he said.

Hawke smirked. "See, that is proper attitude in war. I wouldn't mind serving under General Fenris."

"I did not think you would agree to serve under any kind of general," Fenris said with a curious look.

"A subject quite moot considering my birth defect," Hawke said, sipping from her cup.

Fenris smirked. "Which one?"

Hawke shot him a glance. "Do not assume roles you are unfit for, my advice." She took another sip out of her cup.

"How very Qunari of you," Fenris remarked.

Hawke nodded shortly. It was quite hard to avert her eyes from the incredible sight that Fenris produced. She made the best effort to keep her composure and forget, if only for a moment, how badly she wanted to just go away somewhere and take Fenris with her, only him.

No doubt Fenris was angry with her. No doubt he was disappointed in her… She had left things so deeply confusing… She wanted to tell him things. But would he even want to listen? Indisputably, she was an idiot. Maybe he couldn't see it, but it was very hard for Hawke to meet his eyes without guilt. And embarrassment, and a sense of feeling so small, and so terrible, that to be in his presence again, not having to ask for it, but have him pay her a visit was a privilege she had to appreciate tenfold.

Not only that, but the fact that Fenris chose to respect the distance that she had, if only subtly, established. Perhaps he was waiting for her to gather her wits back, and his line of reasoning said it was enough evidence of his loyalty that he was near.

"I assume from your welcoming me in your home that the seas have calmed down in Hightown?"

"If superficially," Hawke answered. "The Seneschal has been acting gracefully ignorant about it, as he should. Of course, until the next phase, we can resume our business."

"I assume you've seen Varric by now."

"I have... not," Hawke said. "My own request, after all. He's only sent a messenger, informing me of bits and pieces. I have seen Aveline at the Keep, from a distance. Every time I tried visiting, guards would tell me the Captain is busy. You can imagine Anders is very pleased with me, however."

"Evidently," Fenris said coldly, cheek in his palm.

"What have you been doing?" Hawke asked.

His palm left his cheek. "Me?" He looked to his left as if it was difficult to remember. "Drinking and sleeping, on the whole," he said, sombrely shrugging. "It seems I am pretty useless to myself."

Then he didn't remember the other night. She was relieved. After that night in Antiva where he was on the verge of really hurting her, after he realized what he was doing and to see him crushed by his own rage, how he begged her forgiveness, paralyzed and self-defeated… she did not want him to think himself some sort of monster again.

She promised herself she would never let herself rekindle Fenris's rage or fear out of negligence, at the very least.

Fenris was looking at her. Stop it. The awful feeling came to her that she'd failed him utterly, that for the first time in her "new life", she had truly behaved like a complete bitch. Flashes of memories came in pangs, how he saved her life at least twenty times, how he kept pursuing her, and genuinely trying his best to be good to her, how loyal he presented himself to her, the amount of control he had to usher in the effort to respect her as a woman…

… how he helped her escape Templars, and how he dragged her to a mage he had no love for so she would accept that she was a mage that made magic her enemy.

"I'm sorry I did not tell you about the trial," Hawke said, her shoulders rising. "I did not even know there was going to be one. It seemed as if there would only be a settlement behind closed doors." She looked down. "But it was foolish of me."

"What's done is done," Fenris said calmly. "We shall see what is to become of this."

Fenris, on the other hand, felt very detached from the situation. She was safe and seemed fine, therefore there was nothing for him to worry about. He had a bone to pick with her, and there would be a calm and peaceful night to do it, eventually. He'd grown used to the fact that Hawke was highly distrustful of people and she had a … stance. Another persona, as it were, defensive, coldly hysterical, unpredictable. She embodied this stance perhaps outside of her control whenever certain circumstances seemed threatening. These traits were incredibly useful to have on the battlefield, but it caused great misunderstanding outside of it…

Surely, he would be angry with her, if only he were oblivious to that sort of blind instinct. He would only need to pick one moment from the recent past. He remembered her face vividly. The amount of planning and work she had done for his mansion alone, and to be faced with such disappointment and displeasure… He was not her friend that day. He felt it when he was accusing her, he saw into her eyes how her soul crumbled.

He wanted to tell her that he enjoyed the deep violet armchair the most, and the ottoman he could put his feet up on and fall asleep with a book on his lap, and when he would wake the beeswax candle would still be aflame. The books, yes, that he enjoyed them too and that he was truly feeling her absence—their little tradition before Antiva, for instance, where she would come by every now and then and they would read history, religion, maniacal philosophies, duellist handbooks, and argue over it hours on end as if they were old friends. One corner of his mouth stretched.

"What?" Hawke said with gentleness.

Fenris looked up, as if startled.

"You need to tell me something," Hawke said intuitively.

As open and nice as she seemed, today was yet another one of those inopportune days. He had to inform her of Feynriel. After all, if he was a schmuck, he'd rather be a self-confessing shmuck. It earned him some points from the dozen he would soon lose.

Fenris took a deep breath. His chest filled exquisitely, pumping up the vest. "Before I do," his voice came smoothly, "Know that I only—"

"Do you want to take a walk?" Hawke interrupted, staring at him, although she looked like she was sitting on a chair made out of needles.

"I—", Fenris tried. He did not expect this. "Well, I would—"

Ya fockin' cleeky wanker I'll fockin' claw hammer yer teeth oyte ya cum-guzzling Highever twat.

"Not now, like… later," Hawke said, her posture uncomfortable. "To have some peace and quiet."

"I can hardly think of an outdoorsy place where there is peace or quiet," Fenris said, his brows furrowing at the ruckus outside.

"I don't care. Whoever disturbs us can take it up with our blades," Hawke said sternly. Fenris noticed she stopped looking at him and that her nails were stabbing the armchair on line with her knees.

He felt a strange sense of dominance over the situation. She looked so beautifully forlorn, like she was small and gentle and needed him, three things the essence of Hawke clashed with entirely.

Fenris let his eyes pucker slightly and his torso left the back of the chair in the other direction, his arm taking up a lot of space while resting on his knee.

His mean mouth shot her a fetching grin and his voice became deep, "Is there something you need to tell me?"

"Why no, I was actually thinking to just scout the coast for fungus," Hawke said sarcastically.

"I am truly curious what you might tell me," Fenris said, still grinning a little. And envisioning his handsome face, those black straps wrapped irresistibly right around his sculpted biceps, and his classy shirt that made his green eyes fixed on her deep and gleaming, Hawke even felt herself get redder.

Fenris surely felt rather pleased with himself. This was just peeling back the first layer.

"Is there something I can do for you, Hawke?" Fenris said, seeming like the king of his own armchair.

He felt the need to take her somewhere, take her away from here, but right now it was enough to tense her up a little. It was truly amusing.

"You can leave the smugness along with the other garbage, thank you very much," she said, pointing to the bin.

"A fine suggestion. You will forgive me for rejecting it," Fenris said in a bright tone.

"Holy moly, I haven't heard such heated yapping since the Wardens," a voice came from the other room. Anders. The pleasant tangle of thoughts in him broke. Everything came back. What he had to tell her about Feynriel.

And he didn't imagine that mage was who the third empty cup belonged to.

Suddenly, a circuit in him simply screeched. What business would this mage have with Hawke this early? How could he get past the guards? Hawke told them to keep a distance. And Anders was surely the last person she would want to be seen having contact with if she wanted to keep an immaculate profile under the current investigation. It made no sense.

Unless he came through that old secret passage from Darktown the night before… He clenched his fist. He bit his lip. Zevran and Armand's words came back to him like a tornado. Do not think about this here. Rather, do not think about this at all. Nonsense. Impossible. Abracadabra. Swallow whatever is coming up.

"Oh, heated yapping and there you are," Anders said as soon as he saw Fenris.

Although if it was true, Fenris would kill him. No hesitations, no explanations.

"Perhaps you should give them some couple's counselling, Doctor," Fenris said coldly, drinking his tea.

"Perhaps I should give some to you two," Hawke intervened.

"No need. I shall take my leave," Fenris said gentlemanly. He threw the ball invitation softly on the table and got up, much to Hawke's surprise. "Come see me later."

"Will you be wearing the same thing?" Hawke said in amusement.

"If you like," Fenris said.

With her eyes on the invitation she said: "Yes, I do very much, indeed."

He grinned shortly through his hair. Then he was gone, back still straight. Damn he was tall.

Anders sat in his chair.

"Huh… the fat lords are calling me to the ball," Hawke said. She let the invitation fall through her fingers. "And I have absolutely nothing to wear."

"Fenris gave it to you?" Anders said. He brought his hand to his chin. "You think that was an implication?"

"Implication of what?"

"To go with him," he gestured.

Hawke snorted.

"I know, right, I mean if you go with anyone, he should at least look like he didn't just come out of a cage—cave."

She scowled furiously at him. "That's not what I meant, Anders. And you seem scandalously short of empathy for him which is a little hypocritical."

Anders' eyes rose. "No 'interesting slip of the tongue, tell me more about your gay exotic dancing '? No 'beats someone who I will be mistaken for a lesbian with'?"

Hawke stared at him, unchanged.

"Okay," Anders said in disbelief. He shrugged. "Our plights are not the same. He made that abundantly clear." His eyebrows fell. "Why should I have any empathy?"

"Forgive me, I forgot you too have the temper of a child," Hawke said, eyes falling down on the letter again.

Two hours later, Sundermount

"You will get your help if you walk down to Kirkwall and claim Arianni as one of your own," Fenris said to the Keeper.

The elders scuffed, some of them cursing in elven.

"You ask of something that is far too out of your understanding, da'len," she said diplomatically.

"I understand that she has paid her dues long enough," Fenris said. "You should be ashamed."

This angered the elders.

"You are not an elf!" one said sharply.

"And what a relief," Fenris said.

"He dishonours us," another cried. "Send him away!"

Fenris ignored them. "You claim to be Keeper as is your title," he said towards her. She listened carefully, stoically. "—and you claim to all be keepers of the true El'vhen. However, I am deeply sceptical of your methods."

"I do not blame you for that, da'len," the Keeper said.

"You do not blame me because I am not one of you. I respect that," Fenris said solemnly. "However, he who is one of you does not have the privilege to doubt anything lest they want to be demonized and dishonoured. You will forgive me for considering this utterly wicked."

"However did you reach that consideration, da'len?" the Keeper asked, smiling. It was an honest smile.

Fenris didn't reciprocate. He raised his clenched armoured fist. "You keep everyone from experiencing the world outside of a ten foot radius and then you shame and curse them for the most random mistakes, when you very well know the only way one betters himself and adopts an idea that to you seems objectively right is after the mistake has been done and only after one has truly seen the weaves and threads of his own actions." His tone became very scolding, but the Keeper simply stayed in place and listened without a speck of emotion.

He raised his voice, yet it remained thick. "How else do you preserve the true El'vhen, how have you preserved these ancient values? By fear? Is that really how you want history to remember you? The last of the elven people who only kept it so under the apprehension of being shamed or shunned?"

Fenris took a step towards the Keeper. His eyes narrowed, peering at her. "Do you honestly believe one truly learns anything through punishment?"

Something in the Keeper's eyes changed, in the way she regarded him.

He looked at the others with no fear. "You have a dying culture, and if you want to restore it, you need people for it. Honest people. Free people."

"Otherwise, calling yourselves 'the free ones' is no more than a conveniently relative term to shame outsiders. A pretty wall of flowers with nothing inside but educating your children to hate everything and themselves for things they cannot possibly be allowed to understand. Virtue signalling left, right and centre. Tunnel-vision lemmings. That is not El'vhen. That is the shemlen you claim to have moral superiority over."

General snarling almost echoed through the mountain.

Fenris' voice remained undaunted. "Take her back and let the Templars think we got rid of Feynriel, a service to the Chantry. It will leave them to be what they are best, the administrators of chaos. Everyone will win. They will leave you alone, and they will leave us alone."

A few minutes passed where Marethari and the elders exchanged disagreement in hushed tones. Fenris could not possibly discern on which side the scales tipped.

"Go, Fenris," Keeper Marethari eventually said. "Prepare and we will send word. There is much to be done."

Evening, Fenris' Mansion

"I have news. You will want to sit down."

Hawke's eyebrows widened. "I thought we were going for a walk?"

"And we shall, although I doubt you will wish to afterwards."

"You're scaring me now," Hawke said, scowling.

"Sit," Fenris said again, articulating the consonants.

And she did, eyeing him fixedly. Cold boil.

"Drink," Fenris said flatly, giving her a glass.

And she drank the whole thing lest he bitch about that too.

Fenris walked back and forth militarily. He seemed to ponder his words in his mind very carefully. Hawke followed him with her eyes in silence.

He turned to her, his face alight by the fireplace. "Are you by chance familiar with the term Somniari?"

Hawke's widened eyebrows shortened in a scowl. "Father said if I ever run into a Somniari and he is not my friend I should kill him right away and worry about my conscience later."

He looked at her, without saying anything. It sent a chill over her forehead. "You're not saying—"

"Indeed," Fenris said. "This one is closer to us than you would imagine."

"Maker's sake, Fenris, who?"

"Arianni's one and only."

"Shit," she said lowly, her eyes falling. "Shit."

"Drink," Fenris said curtly, refilling her glass.

Hawke swallowed fully.

"I saw him personally. He looked dreadful. I suspect danger."

"Demons?" Hawke said.

"If only they were as easy to cure as the common flu."

"As easy to come down with for us."

"Indeed," Fenris said, pouring more wine.

"Wait, you said you saw him? Why?"

A muscle danced in Fenris' cheek as he poured wine for himself.

"You tried to take him to the Templars," Hawke said disapprovingly.

"And I would do it again," Fenris said flatly. "The journey that is. Evidently my original intentions are out of the question now."

"I cannot believe you, Fenris."

He knew that was coming. No more walk for them, now.

"Who the hell appointed you my trusty sidekick?" she shouted. "My problems are my own!"

Fenris frowned. "The hypocrisy is rising."

"And you stand here claiming they are synonymous? I do not screw with people's lives, Fenris."

He took a dominant step forward. "Look me in the eye and tell me you would not have taken him to the Templars to save that woman."

She took a step forward as well, staring into his eyes. "I would have. I should have." There was something about the way she imposed herself on him.

"What does that even mean?" Fenris snapped with a puzzled expression. He threw out his arms. "I apologize for winning the race?"

She turned her back and walked. "It means you stay out of it."

"What? It is not my role to do otherwise?" Fenris said in a mocking tone. He took a deep, irritated gulp of wine.

Hawke stopped and turned around to face him.

"Precisely," she said harshly. "Your role, relative to myself, just like last time, just like any other time, is to ensure I stay alive long enough to make the decisions."

She saw an instant flash of spite take over Fenris' eyes.

"Yes, mistress," he said with a tone full of vitriol. He turned his head and spat.

She shook her head slowly. "How dare you," Hawke said gently, miserably.

Fenris turned to look at her, barely aware of his previous reaction. Completely persecuted expression, trapped in a coil of contradictions. He cursed himself for it. The hate was fresh and astonishing and it had simply, inexplicably, taken full possession of him in that moment and he could do nothing to control it or understand it. All judgement had left him.

Of course he got his coin for every job he had personally chosen to do. Of course his job was to keep his employer alive.

He remembered Hawke's words at Varric's birthday party: The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

He couldn't believe himself. He adorned himself with his old personality, you might say, totally geared for an apparition.

He turned around, his hand over the back of his neck, and grabbed the poker to fiddle with the fire. There was cold, deadly silence. He continued to stare, clearly thinking, still only vaguely respecting the fact that she was there.

"I assume our arrangement for the evening is no longer available," Fenris said in a low, bitter tone.

It was a very angry look she gave him. Her mouth twitched but she stopped herself as if she remembered something.

"Well," Hawke hesitated. "I do need to sit down and devise a strategy in relation to this news."

He was relieved, and ashamed, that she chose to ignore what had happened.

"No need," Fenris said, staring at the fire. "I went back to the camp and made a deal with the Keeper."

"On my behalf?" Hawke raised her voice.

"No halves of yours were mentioned," Fenris retorted sharply as he turned around. "I demanded that they take Arianni back as one of their own, and whatever happens to Feynriel, officially, as far as Templars are concerned, he is truly gone. A courtesy."

Hawke sat down and stared at him in disbelief. He had thought it out far better than she. Fenris sat down in his armchair. He stared back at her, hand over his knee, a serene expression, the fireplace roaring behind him. If Arianni became Dalish, at the very least, she would never be touched by any Templar or Guardsman again. And if they helped Feynriel and made it look like he was dead because of them, Meredith would have less to suspect of Hawke. Perhaps even try to reach an agreement.

She looked at him still. An empty thought loomed around her head, as if she was forgetting something. Fenris was breathing calmly, cheek against his fist. He merely peered at her in a solemn disappointed fashion.

Then she realized he went back there. She had to sit down. Fenris went back there, dragged by no soul in the slightest. She felt ashamed of her rage. To voluntarily go back there, surely he was faced with a lot of scorn. Double upon the fact that he went to the Dalish to give his aid to a dangerous mage he agreed not to execute. This must have required of him a great deal of self-control.

"You're right, this is good," Hawke said, clearing her throat. "And it's good that you went. If we hadn't found out in time—"

"How fortunate that I have no morals, right?" Fenris said, sunken back against the chair rest.

She looked at him sternly, and then she impressed upon him something infinitely more profound. "Perish the thought. Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right."

His expression changed, yet he remained silent.

"When and where are we going to do this?" Hawke asked, getting back to the matter at hand.

"She did not say," Fenris replied. "Only that I— we should prepare. The tone was… threateningly inauspicious."

"She is right," Hawke said resolutely. Her voice became serious, teacher-like. "To face demons, we must enter the Fade. That is no cup of sunshine in the slightest."

"I must confess, I know little of the Fade apart from its… residents," Fenris said.

"In that case, think of the Fade as a demon that does not wish to possess you," Hawke said. "Because it is you."

"I do not know how I'm supposed to make use of that," he said, raising an eyebrow.

"You'll know once we're there," she said with a calming smile. "Stay alert and don't be fooled. There is nothing really I can think of to tell you. I have no doubt that you will do excellently. It's others I worry about."

Fenris gave a modest nod. "Good to know."

Hawke smiled and stood up. She snatched the bottle on her way out.

A cloudless day in the hot thin air of the Alienage, and far ahead in the distance loomed the massive pleated flank of the Gallows. Around them, the withered stone walls of a near invisible white, the faded red awnings, the utterly pointless stakes, all stood as they had left it—an epitome of great misfortune.

Over them, the vibrant treetop of the Vhenedhal cast its majestic veil of shadow. It took her breath away each time she glanced at this ancient living giant, not only because it was so beautiful, but because it was so seemingly full of meaning, though no true meaning was there.

Fenris didn't want to linger. This place repelled him more than he wanted her to know.

"So, you two made up?" Fenris said towards Hawke and Aveline.

"We were never on bad terms to begin with," Aveline said, crossing her arms.

Hawke smiled happily towards him. "That is to say, she owes me a hand transplant after all that feeding."

Fenris raised an eyebrow.

"A job for another time. This one cannot wait."

"Remember you're not fully ready to use your entire magic reserve, Hawke," Anders said.

She shrugged. "There is no need for magic once in the Fade."

Anders' face tensed and twisted as if somebody told him water didn't prevent dehydration.

The inside of Arianni's house was even more depressing than where Hawke used to live. The Templars must have taken her for a long time. It wasn't a bad place to live in if mould and cobwebs were your type of decorative art.

Fenris was no stranger to the rank and gutter of real estate, though now he could not cherish his mansion more. His life seemed not only comfortable now, but a compilation of wonders that bordered on the miraculous.

After blueprinting their strategy, the Keeper insisted on talking to Hawke in private.

"You're really not my type," Hawke said.

"This is a serious matter," the Keeper said disciplinarily. "Feynriel cannot be allowed to live if his mind gives in to the demon. Do you understand?"

"I very well understand," she said flatly. The Keeper looked as if she had more prepared to say, but concluded was unnecesary.

"Choose your companions carefully," Marethari finally said.

"You tell me this now, as if I could change much in the speck of a few seconds. This cannot wait. I have already chosen." By gradual exclusion, but that's neither here nor there.

She walked in front of her team.

"Ladies and gentlemen, virgins and Anders, a short brief before we go," Hawke said militarily. "To walk the path of the Fade is perilous. You must exercise caution and a great deal of self-awareness. If you have some deep dark secret that is eating you alive, now is the time to step away. I will not have people break down and fuck up this mission, likewise I will not be altogether pleased to kill you. Alright? Alright."

"Is that why you made us write 'You are in the Fade, your name is—' and draw a wheel on our wrists?" Aveline said.

"Precisely. You will look at it whenever you lose focus, as if checking a pocket watch for the time. You will not lose yourselves. Now look at your wrists, keenly observe the colour, the texture, the shape and the size of your writing and the wheel. Remember it. When you are ready, we shall depart."

"I am ready," Fenris said flatly.

"I have never been in the Fade since Justice," Anders said. "I'm worried what it might mean for me."

"Well, you can't be worse than each other," Hawke said. "Aveline?"

"Anytime, Hawke," she said.

"Right. There's a signet underneath these blankets that will help us go into the Fade. Lie down, relax and imagine you are going through a tunnel."

Fenris scowled in protest. "But how are we—"

He mercifully drifted as he felt all his muscles simply give out. He saw a sparkling sea, the waters off the coast of Marnus Pell, or maybe Seheron, crenelated and beautiful beneath the noonday sun. He was floating rapidly on this sea, perhaps in a small bark, or maybe just on his back. He couldn't feel the water itself, but there seemed nothing between him and the gentle tossing of the waves that were big and fast and easy, carrying him up and then down. Far off, a great city gleamed on the shore. At first he thought it was Marnus Pell, or even Minrathous and that he had been turned around somehow and was floating towards the land. Then he saw it was much bigger than Minrathous, with great piercing reflective towers, as if it had been made entirely out of glass.

Then the waves seemed to fold over him, not in wet suffocation, but more like a blanket of heavy light.

Hawke, in turn, loved deliberately going into the Fade, and though years had passed since she had done so, she could never forget the awesome process of landing into the Fade. At least, that's how she did it. Her father liked entering the Fade via a mental projection of de- and rematerialization. Simple and elegant.

She, instead, would fly to the Fade. She raised her arms slowly, with conscious grace. Her eyes closed, as she willed herself upwards, and she felt her body rising immediately as if she were weightless, a force seemingly unfettered by substance, riding by sheer intention the wind itself.

She let her body drift and twist and the snow to buffet her. A weightless comet, a fluttering wisp, a speck of dust.

And as always happened in such moments, the scream of the wind became the voices of a vague past. It seemed as if her life, her old life, was more than ever a myth to be cherished as all practical belief died away. "My dearest child…"

"Tell me why, Father."

"Another time, when you're older and ready."

Unanchored, she might have forgotten her destination. She could have let herself drift away towards the Void. But she spread out her arms, willed herself to face the earth again, and saw the temple courtyard, or rather, it looked like a part of the Gallows.

The speed of her descent astonished her. If momentarily, it shattered her perception. She found herself standing in a great hall, her body aching for one flashing instant, and then cold and still.

The scream of the Fade was distant. She heard the music of it, like some mages do, but everything seemed brutally clear and her vision and reason refreshed. She felt better than she ever felt in her real body. It was like she was a wave of energy that could shapeshift into anything, do anything, know anything. And she was. She could calculate the square root of 182 very easily in here. She could turn into a bear if she pleased. She saw the seams and weaves of every little molecule in the ether, pulsating, never static, rebuilding itself every second. It was something Bethany could not do in the Fade, nor their Father very well for that matter, although he had taught himself and had a brilliantly large reserve of focus.

She stood still, and the knowledge, the facts, as it were, the hundreds upon hundreds of small details which were like transparent droplets of magical fluid passing through her and into her, filling her and vanishing to make way for more of this great shower of truth—all of this kept growing.

It was indescribable.

She felt such cognitive fluency in here, it was like an ongoing orgasm.

She recognized Justice right away, if the beaming inhuman eyeballs didn't paint a clear enough picture.

"Ah, it is good to feel the breath of the Fade again, not the… empty air of your world," it said bitterly.

As for Fenris, it was not such a pleasant experience. Someone caught him. He didn't even see who it was. After the blanket light at least, sound and colours mingled in a hot, pulsing blur.

Danger.

Then, with astonishing clarity, all the glory that could be accomplished by colour was here in this world revealed. He saw the boundless sky, the gleaming grass, the splendid sea and then the enormous walls, they flashed and glowed with this great harmony of colours, blending and twinkling and shimmering as if the tower were made out of some pure thriving energy rather than dead or dying earthly matter.

Danger. He felt it again, coursing through him, a scorching current. Then gone. And then a glimpse of a green and humid place, a place of soft earth and stifling growth. But it vanished almost immediately.

He thought he saw a red-headed woman. It was clear somewhere in his mind that he knew her, but that thought was like a thin fleece that only faintly sizzled and then escaped his focus.

Then a great force emanated from everywhere in his would-be vision. He closed his eyes and shielded his ears. It surrounded him as if it were air or breeze or water, but it was none of these things. It was far more than that, but nevertheless an invisible pressure with no palpable form.

It held him down with formidable strength, it blinded and deafened him to his very core. The scream of the Fade was mind-consuming. It was like he was being battered with an overdose of sensory input.

He saw pyres, spitting, crackling, dead bodies darkening as they lay heaped on the burning stakes. Then the glass city again. Too much.

There was music he heard through the walls, a dizzying throb, voices melding into one gruesome and repetitive sound.

"Focus," an alarming voice bestrode all the others. It was melodic, but stern, and viciously familiar.

It felt like he was experiencing a million moments of waking up when you're not ready to, all in one impetuous go.

"Fenris," it said. The sound grew clearer. His vision became binocular again, and it focused onto Hawke. "Eeeeverything is fine. Look at your wrist."

He blinked several times, and saw a corporeal arm, although it was debatable if it belonged to him. There was the familiar note plastered on his gauntlet.

All the colour, all the clarity that he had experienced simply vanished. He could not remember it.

The hall they were in seemed visually rotten. If the Maker's Heaven was what he might have experienced before with the colours, this Fade seemed like the divine swamp. It looked like the most savage and puzzling place, with no symmetry or harmony to it. A landscape eating itself alive. He thought it was perhaps their minds that tried to make sense of it, give an order to the architecture.

"Good," Hawke's voice resounded. "Move around, get your blood flowing again."

"What blood?" Fenris asked with half-lidded eyes.

"You know what I mean."

There was only a strange feeling now, a subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.

"The woman you call Aveline is strong," Justice said, who tended to her. "Is your other companion ready?"

"Wait a minute, take a look at him," Aveline said in disbelief. "His hair."

"What about it?" Fenris asked.

"It's… like a dark mahogany now," Hawke said, her eyes scanning him as if he had some disease.

"Some sort of error?" Aveline said in echoes.

"Wait, where are your markings?" Hawke said, a wave of fear animating the muscles of her face.

Fenris glanced over his shoulder at his arm to see nothing but skin. Pure, ordinary, unadorned skin.

"Perhaps this is how he sees himself in his true form," Justice said.

"You mean this is how my mind secretly constructed my appearance to be like were I not enslaved?" Fenris asked.

"Do you often consult a mirror?" Hawke asked. She rolled her eyes and opened up. "No, seriously."

"There is nothing much to consult," Fenris said impassively, his voice echoing.

"Then maybe Justice is right," Hawke said. "If you don't give power to a conscious image of yourself, in rare cases like yours, your unconscious mind provides you with one. Kind of like with lawyers."

"I see," Fenris said. "Perhaps after we achieve the objective of this mission, I could find a mirror around here."

"Right behind you," Hawke said, her words reverberating.

Dizzily, Fenris turned around and positively skipped an ethereal beat. He stepped closer to the mirror. He looked far better than he ever imagined himself to be. The feeling was utterly dispassionate, he did not feel an exultation in his own attractiveness. He only thought, what a healthy young man. Look at this tall being with big green eyes—their reflections at least, the eyes of this man made sense—and this strangely fitting hair like some dark precious wood from big leaf trees with shades of faintly reddish brown reflecting light. And that could have been him all the time?

He was losing focus. He looked at his wrist. The mirror vanished.

"Sorry," Hawke said. "We need to move on."

"Very well," Fenris said, feeling a bit stupid. "Let us make haste."

They advanced towards what should have been the door to the courtyard.

"Come," Justice said. "I can sense Feynriel's mind straining nearby. We will not have much time."

Voices in the shadows mingled with that out-of-place sensation. His mind fought to keep control, but he was getting the hang of it.

"I can sense your mind is well, Hawke," Justice said. "But I cannot make sense of it."

"You are still just a spirit," she said. "Everyone has their limitations."

Justice scuffed. "Just a spirit—as if you mortals can even grasp the vast complexity that constitutes a spirit—" he muttered to himself.

"Out of all the spirits I've encountered, I've never met one so arrogant and quick to take offense," Hawke said.

"Perhaps it is more the host that contributes to this handicap," Fenris said.