Fenris - The "Daniel" Memory, Mausoleum

"Wait… hold on. What is this extraordinary information you have? You must give me some idea, before you bring upon me some extraordinary request—which I'm sensing you are about to."

Hawke did not expect this. Esme was a cleverer lady than she had thought her to be.

"I made an… accidental discovery about a certain creature. It turned out to have an accelerated and drastic healing mechanism inherent to its biology." Esme was carefully—but sceptically—listening. Hawke had rehearsed this. "I know our biology is more complicated than what we can do with magical healing up to this point in time, but I saw this creature fully regenerate its partly crushed brain. I think that… I don't know. I think if we have a spell, you know… basically an algolyru— err… algolama—"

"Algorithm," Esme cut her.

This saved some time.

"That. If we already have that, to emulate regeneration on some minor injuries… why not… why not major? Why not diseased tissue? Potions do that sometimes… I mean… they produce the physical stuff to… you know… Replace the bad stuff. So if we had both physical replacements of physical stuff and emulation of … of this replacement (spell healing), then… then—ugh, do you get what I'm… well… getting at?"

Her brain was giving out. She didn't have the words, just formless concepts. This is where Esme stepped in.

"Yes, I do," Esme said.

Thank fuck.

"So, so—yeah," she said, and rescued her thoughts back from the chaos galaxy of science, "With your brain, well, something extraordinary could become of this. Extraordinary enough to regenerate anything, even in Danny."

Esme swallowed hard, her face a perplexed mess of wonder and desperation. "What… what do you want in return? No… wait, of course. I'm sorry," she said, deeply embarrassed. "Of course I will do everything in my power to save you and the babies if this is even possible. Of course I will!"

"Thank you, Esme, truly," she said softly. "I mean, I thought as much—that you naturally would. So listen carefully for the next part, which makes the request extraordinary."

"Ah, yes," Esme said perceptively. "Go on."

"I am certain that you will do everything you can, as swiftly as you can. Of that I have no doubt—nor of the fact you are an incredibly intelligent lady. I know I wasn't as taken with your teachings as Danny and Beth were—"

"Yes, yes, you just couldn't wait for 'harblology' to be over so you could go ride Ser Varg's horse or learn to polish shields, or cook… whisky-flamed peppercorn squirrel."

"Hey, the whiskey squirrel came in a lot of handy in the army, I'll tell you that! D'you know what they give you as carry-on food when you go on a mission? Peas and bloody carrots!" Hawke exclaimed passionately. "For people who rely on their muscles! Peas and fucking carrots, Esme! What a joke!"

Esme laughed an endearing laugh at her sudden passion. "Yes, you're a crafty girl. A very practical one. I've always admired that in people on the outside."

"What d'you mean?" she asked.

"In the Circle, most mages never get to experience your world, you know, this (she gesticulated with open arms); real life. In our studies we fall prey to meaningless abstract fascinations, even when working with very real, tangible objects like herbs and compounds. We have nothing else to do, in a way…" she said, her smile bittersweet.

Sometimes it was easy to forget Esme used to be a Circle mage. It was like knowing someone from another country that still shared the same racial characteristics. In a small village, you'd have nothing to compare them to but your own, and Esme blended in nicely. Looked the same, spoke the same, behaved the same. Maybe looks and language were quite an effortless given, but in regards to behaviour—it was hard to guess just how much effort that took for people such as her in order to blend in. After all, the only Circle mages Hawke knew, she knew because at some point they became apostates. That was a whole different experience than being born one.

"Anyway, we-we digress," Esme drawled. "You know I have expertise and I will do my best, but—?"

"Ah, yes, the but that makes this extraordinary."

"That's the one."

Hawke sighed and gathered her words. "In spite of all that, in the… (she thought very carefully)… unlikely case that I do not have enough time to witness this great… healing potion-spell-machine, thing, whatever you'll do with it—" she said and hesitated, thinking. She started touching the back of her neck on and off.

"Then what?" Esme asked with a worried frown.

"Then I need you to please kill me, please?" Hawke bumbled, touching the back of her neck again.

Hawke - The Gardens, Outside the Mausoleum

It was a warm, violet evening now. Hawke sat in silence on the ground, very anxious and wooden, next to an apologetic basket of apples and cider.

She had no idea how long it would take for Fenris to go through those memories. Sometimes, in the real world, she would wake up and snooze, then dream a whole big adventure that seemed to last for hours just to wake up five minutes later.

Who knew how fast someone else could watch dreams inside your own dream? Who knew she would one day have to ask that strangely fucked up question?

"Mistress," a lizardy voice called from the bushes.

"Hawke," she said flatly.

"Mistress Hawke—"

"Okay, just Hawke, a'ight?" she snapped.

Bucky, the somewhat Terror Demon, came out in a snake-like walk from the bushes.

"Hawke—" he said reverently. "May I ask you something?"

"What is it?"

"I would like to ask you what brings this person here."

Hawke puffed.

"Is something funny?" Bucky asked in confusion.

"Yes, actually," she said flippantly.

"What is so funny? Bucky asked again.

"You wouldn't understand," she said, shaking her head towards the ground.

"I see," Bucky said calmly.

She looked at the clueless sod and felt a little bad. She enclosed her knees in her arms, and said: "What's funny is that—out of most err, beings I've met, a Demon of Terror would be one to refer to Fenris as a person."

"Is he not a person?"

"He is."

"I don't see what is so funny."

"Arghh…" Hawke grunted in annoyance. "I don't know how to explain…" She thought this must be how Fenris felt when he tried explaining Tevinter grammar. It was just something you knew without really knowing. "Okay… think about it like how you were before you got here."

"Before I got where? The world?"

"No, like…"

"I wouldn't know how I was like before I ever was. I don't think I could have been anything before I could be something."

Hawke was at the end of her wits. A philosophy lesson—last thing poor brain needed right now.

Yet, she tried to humour Bucky. Maybe because silence with her own thoughts was worse than entertaining his.

"When you saw a living being, you probably saw like a… a super succulent fear factory, right? You know, like, it didn't matter they were a person, that wasn't the main, uhm… identifier in your eyes, was it? The succulent fear-having traits were more salient to you because they… were more relevant to your purpose?"

"What do living beings call Fenris then?"

She did not expect this.

"That's a complex question. He lived in a lot of different places with different cultures than my own."

"What do living beings in your culture call him then?"

"That's a simpler question—Strangers in my culture call him elf and knife-ear, mostly. Anders calls him dog. Varric calls him Broody. I think Isabela calls him Tevinter Booty. Don't tell him that though. The Booty part."

"What do you call him?" Bucky asked.

She frowned and shrugged. "Fenris."

"You don't call him a person either then?"

"I know he's a person, so I call him by his name. Persons have names. It's—" she said , trying to gesticulate something she couldn't find words for, "—personifying." She gave up.

"Do some persons need more personifying in your culture?" Bucky asked.

"Well… yeah, sadly," she said in defeat. "I think that's true in all cultures."

Fenris - The "Daniel" Memory, Mausoleum

"I need you to kill me, Esme, what don't you understand? K-i-l-l m-e. Take me out. Remove the life out of me. Give me the Big Sleep. Terminate my biological functions."

"I will stop you right there," Esme said in great discomfort.

"Stop me wherever you want," she said enthusiastically. "It just has to be when I get in labour, so I'd rather we didn't go too far."

"This is going too far." Esme sighed. "Malcolm warned me you might ask me something stupid."

"Oh, were those his exact words?" Hawke said sarcastically.

"I could not repeat them," Esme said uncomfortably.

"Yeah, fair enough."

Hawke - The Gardens, Outside the Mausoleum

"I think I get the joke now," Bucky said in a happy, contained tone.

"Yeah?"

"It is funny to think that out of all beings, someone like me—whose 'culture', as it were, is more unbecoming than all others in your world—would be civil enough to acknowledge your friend is a person."

"Y-yeah…" Hawke drawled in surprise. "Yeah, that's pretty much bang on. Well done."

"Thank you," Bucky said.

Then he puffed.

"What's so funny?" she asked mechanically.

"You wouldn't understand," Bucky replied calmly.

"Har har. I deserve that, I guess. But seriously, what's so funny?"

"I think it's funny how we all see beings as different things, according to what's more important to us—looks, morals, reputation… succulent fear-having, in my case. Well, my former case. I feel I have no such thing now."

"You think nothing's important to you anymore?" Hawke said.

"I feel nothing is important to me anymore. Well, nothing besides this little… family, I suppose."

Hawke puffed again.

"I think I know what's funny this time."

"I bet you do."

"Do you feel there's something more important than family?"

Hawke grimaced. "Another complex question."

"Do you feel there's something more important than family to you?"

Stronger grimace. She looked at the basket. "It depends what you define as family."

"I feel I'm unnecessarily burdening you with difficult questions."

"You feel correctly."

Fenris - The "Daniel" Memory, Mausoleum

It had only been two weeks since she told Esme of the axolotl that the mage got so far as to concoct a spell that halfway emulated its accelerated healing properties. Esme's living room, once a perfectly clean, ordered place, was amass with formulas and sloppy anatomical drawings, often unfinished or scratched out. It was a bloody mess.

In the meantime, Hawke learned three valuable lessons: 1) alchemy was an incredibly marvellous, complex subject, 2) there were two-hundred and thirty seven baby ducks and seventy two flowers in the pattern of the rug in the living room, and 3) she made a terrible assistant.

Beth certainly knew more of this boring alchemy stuff, but she also was miles and miles better at the assistant thing in general. When Danny was in pain though, Beth just couldn't concentrate and had to go comfort him. It was probably a relief for Esme, who could then focus on her work. Hawke tried to help, but her attention span for the yucky squishy sciences was incredibly limited. She preferred things that were more about the doing than the thinking—like painting, or being in charge of other people.

In any case, she would get her wish. Esme was a really annoying drag about it, but eventually she agreed to the terms and that's how Hawke ended up here, trying not to wee in her future husband's mother's beakers every ten minutes.

Hawke's folks were not to know of the terms of this deal; not that they weren't suspecting she would find a way to get her way. They knew their own spawn. But it was better they kept wondering at possibilities than know her way lived basically next door.

Best case scenario—everyone was saved.

Danny would recover and marry Beth, and their children would be smart and pretty. They would probably continue Esme's work and prevent a great deal of dying and suffering.

Hawke would recover and have three mischievous spawns of the underworld to look after if you counted her husband. She could become a teacher, like her father, Ser Varg and Ser Armand, and show her children and other aspiring fighters how to think for themselves and make the best out of a bad situation.

Andrei would work hard and reach the end point of what luxury can provide, and finally abandon his boyish desires in favour of being a good father (?).

Carver would find his own way, free of obligations and a guilty conscience, find a woman smarter than him who could reign him in, and wise the fuck up.

Lastly, her aging parents would travel the world to wherever margaritas and coffee came from, have a nice retirement and loud sex in their bungalow. That's the luxuries people abandon when they have kids, right?

Dogs would stay with Hawke and be happy as can be playing horsey for the kids.

Worst case scenario—shitty snowball of doom.

Danny would die.

Esme would lose her mind. Maybe take her own life.

Beth would become a cloistered sister, and would probably get caught one day with her true identity as she was never one to follow strict rules in favour of personal ethics. She'd either get killed by Templars and made an example of to Circle mages, or become one, but then would probably be treated like a freak by the others who grew up in the Circle, either out of fear or jealousy.

Carver would feel guilty and subconsciously sabotage himself in the army to get kicked out. He would come back and and take care of his family, harbouring eternal resentment towards them.

Her parents would abandon margaritas and loud sex plans to take care of her children, while Andrei drunk himself to a stupor, and sold his kids' diapers for cheap bath salts to snort.

Her children would grow up with one good role model, another good-but-occasionally-forgets-what-plates-are-for-model, a very bad role model, and the ghost of one they'd never meet.

Dogs would stay with parents and be just as tired and depressed as the rest while playing horsey for the kids.

Well… the Maker really hated pregnant women, didn't he? We couldn't drink in the most intense moments of our lives!

"That is a terrible plan, Hawke!" Daniel cried.

"That's no way to thank a friend for smuggling your diseased arse to the lake."

"That's no way to… well, there's just got to be a better way of phrasing that."

"There is, but I liked this one."

"Yeah, well, how does it feel to have fifteen pounds of my brother's seed inside you?"

"You're terrible."

Daniel puffed with big eyes. "You're worse."

"Daniel Bohuslav Dvorak, how dare you… throw the truth in my face?"

"Oh Maker, she brought out Bohuslav; I really must be in trouble."

"Yeah you are, I'll annihilate the epidermis off your buttcheeks!" she exclaimed threateningly, then her shoulders sank and she rubbed her back.

"Argh, I'll annihilate the epidermis off your buttcheeks tomorrow. Too much effort…"

"Learned a new word during this terrible plan?"

"How's this a terrible plan? I have carefully and deliberately ran through every feasible train of events in my head and this is logically and morally the best course."

"You've carefully ran through every feasible event in your head, did you? Considered everyone's unique situation?"

"Yes, I did."

"And you just started off this experiment all by yourselves?"

"We did."

"And did it ever occur to you to ask me how I feel about this?"

Hawke frowned and grimaced in confusion. "No."

Daniel raised his eyebrows intently.

"I don't understand. Did we interfere with your plans of dying before ever touching a pussy?"

"That's what you think."

"Are you saying you're not planning to die, or that you touched my sister's pussy?"

"Gross, Hawke."

"Again, are you saying dying is gross or my sister's—"

Daniel flicked her head. "Quit it!"

"Okay, okay."

"Thank you."

"But seriously—"

"Fuck off, Hawke."

"Fine. Fine," she said.

Strange. 'Fuck off, Hawke'. So simple, yet so effective, Fenris thought.

"I uh, apologise for—" she said.

"No you don't," he said.

"No I don't!" she cried. "What's up with you? I don't get it. Please explain it. I will listen. No offensive stuff. Promise."

"And no jokes."

"And no jokes."

"You promise?"

"Yes, I promise."

"Okay, bitchface. So where was I—"

"Hey—"

"Hey, I didn't promise anything."

Hawke - The Gardens, Outside the Mausoleum

"Last question then," Bucky said in a pleasant tone.

"Mhm…" Hawke mumbled in a not so pleasant tone.

"Is it questions or burdening in general that is unwelcome?"

"It's all very much undesirable at the moment."

"I see," Bucky said calmly. "Perhaps you would like me to sing you a lullaby Murmur taught me."

Hawke looked up blankly. "No."

Fenris - The "Daniel" Memory, Mausoleum

She closed her eyes, inhaled, and gestured for him to proceed before she found her own loophole—like violence.

"I am not okay with this plan and you should have asked me first," Daniel asserted. "This is a wild long shot in the dark. On a fast-moving target. With heavy plate armour."

"Heavy plate armoured targets can't move that fast—"

"Hey, what did I say?"

"What? That's not offensive nor a joke, it's a clear fact—"

"Yes, well, I'm offended by this fact."

"Tyeah, you and half of Orlais. You'd do well there."

"What?"

"Not… important. Sorry. Blah-blah-blah, offensive fact. Go on."

"Anyway…" he said, scowling at her in total confusion. "I think this plan of yours is very nice and noble and such, but it is a long shot and I would very much rather spend the rest of my days… you know…" He squinted.

She squinted. "… I think I know but I can't say offensive stuff."

"Enjoy myself," he said cuttingly. "Actually enjoy myself before I croak. Sing a song, drink an ale, go to the lake… with someone else, preferably."

"I am tedious," she agreed.

"You are sooooooo tedious," he cried to the sky.

"Yeah well, you're an annoyi— yeah. Despite all that, I love you and Beth loves you and your mother loves you—"

"—and my brother and my kitten and my third cousin twice removed loves me. I know. And I think an act of love is to let that person be happy, even if it means they do something you don't like."

"What, like molest a child?"

"What…" He closed his eyes, exasperated. "What even?"

"There must be some exceptions," she clarified.

"Yeah, of course there are exceptions. Harming others is beyond the acceptable limit."

"But if your death causes other people emotional pain to such an extent that it leads them to a crapload of fucked up destinies… isn't that harm too?"

"Well that's like a second of harm... then you're gone and it's no longer your problem," he said nonchalantly.

"Wow…" she said, quickly angering. "My opinion of you could not get any worse right now. That's a horrible life view. What is wrong with you? That's beyond—". She stopped, noticing something. "Yeah, you're not manipulating me into wishing you dead."

Daniel looked defeated. "I went for it too early, didn't I? I should have built to it, threw in some snot and tears, talk about the meaning of life, turn the table and make it about your tragic crap so you'd empathise—"

"Yeah, live and learn."

He grimaced. "Dark humour aside… don't you think I should get a say?"

Hawke exhaled in annoyance, looking at the starry lake. "Yeah, of course you have a say. We just… didn't think your say would be different."

"That's usually what happens when you don't let people have a say. You don't get to hear them say it."

"And yet… I mean… can't you enjoy yourself and also let your mother concoct her potions?"

He looked at her blankly. "In what universe does fun and my mother just peacefully exist?"

"That's a good point."

Hawke - The Gardens, Outside the Mausoleum

"I am out of ideas to soothe you, Hawke," Bucky said.

"Ok then."

"I would rather avoid burdening you and/or questioning you."

"Great."

"However—"

Hawke looked up and inhaled strongly.

"I do not know when you would be back here to talk, and so I would rather say it now. There is something I know that I feel is in line with what's very important to you; thus, it is important to me."

"Is it about peace, and being left into it?" she said in an evidently sharp tone.

"It's about Fenris."

"I do not wish to know anything about Fenris he wouldn't tell me himself."

Bucky remained serene. "As you wish," he said, and slowly snaked away into the bushes.

Fenris - The "Daniel" Memory, Mausoleum

"Okay, what about this?" Hawke said, and opened her arms in crazy-scheming mode. "What if we keep Esme busy, like super super busy, what with the theories and the formulas, and have her entrust me to… handle the applying."

"Yeah, that sounds way more fun," he said sarcastically. "Have the terrible lab assistant do the actual doing? You know, this is really slap-me-on-the-arse kick-you-in-the-shins fantastic! I've always dreamed of becoming a bloody vegetable!"

"Fine, then have Beth do it."

"Yeah, not the kind of experimenting I'd like to do with her. Un-unless she's into… that stuff. Is she— … Oh Maker, is that why—"

"You're spiralling."

"I may be just a tiny bit."

"Okay so—you enjoy yourself as much as you can. I'll make sure to smuggle you out some more. I'll maybe convince Esme to let me do stuff to you."

"Yeah, I mean, if you're gonna do stuff to me... my mother should know about it."

"Yeah, then we could—" she stopped and finally got it. "Ew."

"Ew?" He scoffed. "Hello? Twin of the father of your children?"

"Yeah, twin of the father of my children."

"Tyeah," he scoffed arrogantly. "As far as you know…"

"Dude."

"No, I see it now. I took it too far," he said, calmly nodding.

"But can you unsee it?" she said calmly.

"No, I cannot," he said calmly.

They both shuddered.

Hawke - The Gardens, Outside the Mausoleum

She exhaled in relief that Bucky was gone.

Silence.

She grabbed an apple from the basket and threw it at the bush in anger.

Fenris - The "Daniel" Memory, Mausoleum

"So what do you get out of this arrangement?" Daniel said.

"I don't get anything. Beth does. And your mum. And your lousy brother."

"Awwww," he said, touching her chin mockingly.

She slapped his hand away.

He gave a joyous, wicked laugh.

"You are a good sister," he then said.

"I am?" she said ironically.

"Yeah, you know, you devise and scheme in your crazy evil brain, but it's usually to get as close as you can to keeping everyone happy."

"Hey, I don't give a flying crap—"

"Not happy with you. Hell no." He made a shocked, disgusted face. "No, if that's what you've been trying to do, you'd have been miserably failing at it all your life."

"I would have."

"Yeah no… I mean— Just… happy. Everyone else happy—then Hawke happy."

She frowned, thinking. "I never thought about it that way."

"Of course you don't; you're too busy thinking about everyone else."

"I didn't think about you when I stopped to play with that dog you hate on the way here."

"Okay, but, didn't I deserve that?"

"Yes, I was teaching you a valuable lesson about patience."

"No, you weren't."

"No, I wasn't. I just love that dog so much! He's so cute I could just eat him uuuup!"

He laughed at her voice squeaking so fast.

"Don't worry, my love. I'll keep your secret—that sometimes you think about yourself."

She laughed. "Thanks."

He was being sarcastic. It wasn't a secret. In fact, the extreme of that idea was quite the public opinion close to a core belief.

A wrong belief, but a useful one, Fenris thought.

"But seriously—please keep mine or I might have to hurt you a little bit," Daniel said.

"Same goes for you."

"Yeah, yours is probably worse than mine."

"Yeah."

"In light of that… why is it such a secret? I mean from your folks, sure, but Beth?"

"I can't tell her all this… it's Beth. She deserves… the best, and sometimes I don't think or say the best things, so…"

"So you tell those things to the worst person you know instead?"

"Exactly. Then I don't feel as appalling."

"Yeah, that's how our friendship works, doesn't it?"

"It's the best." He smiled a fake outrageous smile. "Heh, if she knew the much more horrible way we speak to each other in private."

"Yeah, she knows."

"Wait… she knows? Why? W-why?"

"She's my best friend. And she's my sister." She squinted at him as if he were stupid. "We tell each other everything."

"Everything?"

"Uhm, yeah. Wait… No, yeah, pretty much everything."

"And she's n-not—? Wait, everything?"

"Nope. And yup." She frowned. He looked ill …-er. "Are you okay? Are you having one of those seizures?" She sprung up in panic.

"Well, I'm having... a seizure."