Chapter ELEVEN

"How long will you be gone?" Bethany asked as she helped her sister pack her satchel. She swatted Aria's hands away when she tried to remove the soap, shampoo, and oil from the pack.

"I'm not quite certain. The Dalish could be anywhere within the mountains and the weather isn't looking to be too favorable," Aria replied, gathering the little vials containing health and stamina renewing potions within them and placing them in the small leather pouches sewn into her belt.

"Are you sure you don't want me to go with you? Flemeth might be more gracious if both of us come," Bethany worried.

"I'll be fine. Besides, if she turns on me, better that you're here with Mother. She won't survive the loss of another child," Aria softly said, carefully avoiding the look of hurt that swirled within the warm depths of Bethany's dark eyes.

"You think I can't handle myself?"

Aria sighed and straightened, resting her hands on her sister's shoulders and looking her squarely in the eyes. "I know you can handle yourself, Bethany. You're my sister. I just don't want to take the chance that we might both be killed if things go awry. And I know you'll take care of Mother better than I could."

"You don't give yourself enough credit, Aria," Bethany said, a slight smile gracing her full lips.

"Neither do you. Now, let's hurry this up, shall we? Fenris and Anders might kill each other before we even leave if we don't."

Bethany helped her pack her remaining hip satchel and backpack, then walked down the stairs from Gamlen's house into the street together.

"This is slightly cruel of you, you know," Bethany gently chastised as they walked towards the gates that stood before the mountains.

"I beg your pardon?" Aria queried, confused.

"Taking Fenris and Anders along."

Aria sighed. "It's not like I had a choice. Aveline is busy now that she's in training for Guard-Captain. I need you here with Mother. Besides, Varric is going. He can help me keep the peace."

"That's not what I mean, Aria," Bethany lightly stated. "Anders—he's hopelessly in love with you."

"Urngh. Not this. Not right now. If he's hopelessly in love, then he can say it to me himself; not use my sister as a pawn to lay guilt trips on me. And besides—this is all his fault in the first place. He claims feelings but won't act on them," Aria flippantly ranted.

"And Fenris has expressed interest in you."

Aria stopped sharply to look at her sister. "What?"

"He's been grilling Varric and me every chance he gets about you. What tastes you have, how many battles you've fought, where we're from, what type of whetting stone you use on your blades," Bethany said, listing the things off on her fingers as she spoke. "He hides his motives very well and carries on decent conversation. But we know what he's really after."

Aria snorted as her sister pointed at her. "He has but passing interest in me. I'm his employer, honestly. It's good to know your boss." She kept walking.

"Deny all you want sister, but you're just as passively interested in him," Bethany teased, jogging to catch up.

"Bah!" Aria said, waving dismissively at her sister.

Bethany laughed. "So why did you meet him in Hightown a few nights ago and drink a bottle of wine with him in his mansion?"

Aria stopped again and rounded on her sister. No one had known about that. Or so she thought. "I didn't—meet him there. I was following a lead from Athenril and talked to that stupid Orlesian, Hubert. Fenris just happened to be there, and I was in a companionable mood so I indulged. It's not like we…we…"

Bethany gasped, her eyes lit playfully within. "Aria!"

"I said we didn't, you wretch!" Aria shot back, blushing furiously and continuing stalking towards the gates.

"Uh huh. Just like you and Ser Devon didn't—"

That was going just a little too far. "Please—don't talk about him."

The heartrending pain that crossed Aria's visage lanced through Bethany. "Oh Sister, I'm sorry. I'm getting carried away. It's just—it's good for you, you know? I just am fond of Anders and don't like seeing him hurt, either."

Aria slowed her walking speed a little and looked over at her sister. "Anders's pain is of his own doing," she softly said. "I'm not waiting around for him to change his mind. I want to be happy, too."

"Fair enough," Bethany replied.

"Good. Now, no more talk of men. They're trouble enough and now they're close enough to hear," Aria said, her humour returning.

"Eh, let them. Could do them some good," Bethany said, knowing full well they could now be heard.

"Are we ready?" Aria asked as she strode up to where Anders, Varric, and Fenris waited, their own packs heavy.

"Took you long enough," Varric cajoled. "Let me guess, beauty nap?"

Aria picked up a small stone and launched it at him, hitting him in the breast plate. It bounced harmlessly to the ground and he laughed.

"Come on. We're losing the light and I wanted to be a couple leagues in before we have to make camp," Aria said. She hugged her sister, bade her farewell, and led the way up the winding, rough mountain path.

They had walked all afternoon well into the evening and the multiple groups of bandits that attacked made them even more weary than usual. They were footsore, cranky, and exhausted. They broke to make camp as the sun started to fall just below the treeline.

Anders had set-up the branches for makeshift tents and defensive wards, and was now tending to a wound Varric had sustained from a nastily coated blade in the most recent ambush they'd faced. Fenris was gathering wood for the cook fire in the surrounding forest and hunting pheasant and rabbits for their supper. Aria busied herself with gathering their armour and repairing the damage done.

The sun was below the horizon by the time the cook fire was started. Aria had completely immersed herself in her task, using the luminescent stone Varric had given her. She was oblivious to the world around her and began humming to herself as she worked a few links in Varric's undermail. Before long, the song had formed lyrics in her head and she began to sing.

Taken away from my home
Left in this strange land to roam
Found fortune and blessings
Amidst many a foe

Traveling lonely roads
Adventures, loot, and gold
My heart cries for more
But none are so bold

Love has no place
In a world governed apace
Parrying, evading, and dueling
Keeping this furious rate

Traveling lonely roads
Adventures, loot, and gold
Fate is most unkind
In these stories to be told

Dragons, demons, and mages
Tales across the ages
Diaries, tomes, and fantasies
Kept by silent sages

Traveling lonely roads
Romance, treachery, and rogues
Warriors' swords and mages' staffs
Battling for lost souls

Wounded, weak, and weary
Drained of will and clearly
Fighting is all I know
Beneath this sky so dreary

Her voice trailed off as she went back to humming, fighting with a particularly recalcitrant link. She repaired it and moved to the next. A slight mist began, as though her song had called the actual dreariness of the sky into being.

"Is that the end?" Varric asked from beside her, looking up at the sky, no doubt attributing the soft rain's beginning to her musical incantation.

Aria jumped, startled from her song- and work-induced reverie. She looked up and realized that her party members all sat around her, having pulled up chunks of the wood Fenris cleaved for them to sit upon. She hadn't been aware that they were listening. With a mixture of mirth and playful dread, she recognized the storyteller gears turning in Varric's head.

"I guess it is," she answered Varric's query, returning to fixing the armour. She had grown accustomed to the awe-filled stares as of late, but the heat and slight hint of pain in one particular pair of green eyes was enough to bring a slight flush to her cheeks.

"Where'd you hear that?" Anders asked after a few moments had passed. He pulled the hood up on his robes as the mist grew heavier.

"She didn't," Fenris softly said from his perch beside Varric. "It's her song."

"You wrote that?" Anders pressed, leaning closer to her, his eyes widening in appreciation.

"Technically? No. I sang it," Aria teased, finishing the armour and handing it to Varric. She smiled sweetly at Anders, who returned the gesture.

"I never took you for a bard, Hawke," Varric said, taking the armour and inspecting it. He set it down, apparently satisfied by his appreciative grin.

"I'm not," Aria replied. "It just felt right. Come on, that pheasant smells ready and I'm famished. Let's eat before that rain really starts to fall."

They all got up and moved closer to the fire, Fenris turning the spit a few more times before removing it from the rack over the flames. Varric cut the surprisingly large bird up and dispensed it between the four of them. Fenris passed a bottle of Danarius's fine wine around, doing well to contain his ire at sharing such finery with an apostate. Anders smiled incitefully as he took a drink from the bottle and handed it to Aria. She shook her head and wiped the rim before taking a long drink. When she handed the bottle to Fenris, he pointedly refused to wipe the bottle's rim. He gave her an odd smile and finished the bottle, licking his lips as he savored the taste. Aria blushed slightly and busied herself with finishing her meal.

As their bellies filled, Varric began a tale of a warrior in love with a slave girl belonging to his commanding noble. Fenris interjected his thoughts on the tale as it was told. Varric graciously accommodated the former slave's views and adjusted accordingly. Anders was surprisingly silent, his eyes darting between Fenris and her. Aria worried that he was plotting something, and she feared its fruition. The tale wound through scenes of battle, tender romance, betrayal, and redemption where it ended with the slave girl sacrificing herself for her warrior lover's life.

Anders stood and stretched once Varric's tale had ended. "Thank you for the bedtime entertainment, Varric," he said, casting a glare in Fenris's direction.

"You're most welcome, Blondie. I expect more tales of yours in return when we get back to Kirkwall," Varric replied, also standing and stretching.

"Draw for first watch?" Aria asked on a yawn before standing with them.

"Yes, I have the stones here," Varric said, producing four stones with numbers engraved into them from a small leather pouch at his waist. "Hawke, with as dangerous as this trek has been, I think it prudent that we double guard on watch," he continued as she took the stones from him.

"Agreed," Fenris chimed in, standing and walking over to the fire. He kicked it out, chuckling to himself when Anders shot him a sour look.

"If we do double guard, I'm not with the elf," Anders spat, joining Varric and Aria.

"You'll go with whomever you draw," Aria barked, quickly deescalating the growing hostility. "One with two, three with four."

Aria put the stones back into the pouch and gave it to Varric. They each drew a stone. Aria and Fenris drew the first watch, Anders and Varric the second. Thankfully, the mage and fugitive would not be on guard together. Aria went to her makeshift tent to fetch her blanket and a book she'd acquired on the journey thus far. Anders was hot on her heels, which was exactly what she feared he would do.

"Are you sure you're going to be alright with him? Can you even trust him?" he whispered as he stepped into the small tent, his words pleading.

Aria sighed, folding the blanket around her shoulders and staring Anders squarely in the face. "By your own words, I shouldn't be alone with you either. But if I put you and Fenris together, you'll kill each other. I need both of you."

Anders moaned in frustration, running his fingers through his tawny hair. "I just…can't stand how he's been looking at you, especially tonight."

"That's what this all is really about?" Aria asked. "Well, I have news for all of you. I belong to no man. And any man who deigns to control me will find himself sorely disappointed, if not brutally dead."

"Aria," Anders pleaded, snatching her hand as she stormed past. "My feelings for you—"

"Don't waste your breath," Aria softly murmured, yanking her hand from his grasp, and refusing to look in his eyes.

They stood in silence for a moment before she stalked off into the woods at the edge of camp. She slid down the trunk of an enormous oak tree until she sat against it on the ground, drawing her knees up to serve as a pedestal upon which she could rest her book. She looked out over the camp, blatantly ignoring Anders' pleading stare from where he stood in front of his tent. Fenris took up a position directly across from her on the other side of camp. She took the small illuminating stone Varric had gifted her, shook it, and slid it along the page as she read her book.

As the night deepened, it grew increasingly cold. Much colder than any of them had anticipated. The drizzle that fell from the sky seeped straight to her bones. This was odd weather for the Free Marches. It hardly dropped below anything that could be considered warm. She shivered and shook her arms to generate some warmth in her muscles.

A twig snapped to her right. She jumped up and drew her twin daggers, slashing her right-handed weapon down across the shadow that appeared next to her. The clang of metal on metal rent the still night air. It was difficult for her to see her attacker, with the clouds obscuring the blessed light of the moon. Her teeth chattered involuntarily with the cold, and the figure drew their locked blades downward to a neutral stance.

"Be still," the familiar deep voice sounded from the darkness. "It is only me." He stepped from behind the tree, coming into better view.

"Fenris! You s-s-s-scared the life out of me!" Aria hoarsely whispered, sheathing her daggers again. "Is it t-t-time, already?"

He sat next to her and handed her a flask that was surprisingly warm to the touch. "No, but I could hear your teeth chattering from clear across camp."

She groaned quietly. "I can't get warm to s-s-save my soul. I'm s-s-sorry."

"No need to apologize, Aria. Drink. It's a delicacy in Tevinter."

Aria took a tentative sip from the silver flask to test the liquid, then brought it back to her lips for a longer, heartier draught. It was sweet, rich, and unlike anything she had ever tasted. It warmed her belly deliciously and flooded that warmth through her blood.

"This is amazing!" she whispered, "What is it?"

He chuckled quietly. "White chocolate cocoa, goat's milk, cinnamon, and imperial brandy," he replied, leaning close enough that their shoulders and hips touched.

"Mmm. I'm going to have to buy some when we return to Kirkwall. How did you keep it warm?"

"Would you like me to show you?" he softly asked, adjusting the blanket around her shoulders, his eyes holding a playful light.

"Certainly," she replied, shivering again.

Fenris drew an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him.

"Fenris, I—"

"I'm not going to harm you, Aria," he quietly cut her off, pulling her toward him again so that both of his arms surrounded her. "Relax."

She closed her eyes. His nearness, his feral, spicy, and heady scent slammed into her senses. She felt dizzy for a moment—and then, warmth flooded through her, from her toes to her nose. She sighed and found her own arms encircling his waist. He nuzzled her hair and she responded by curling closer, her head resting on his chest.

"Open your eyes and look at me," he whispered after a few minutes had passed, smoothing his hands down her back.

She complied and gasped at the elf before her. His lyrium tattoos were glowing silvery bluish-white, the obvious source of his warmth. He looked down into her eyes, his expression awash with his vulnerability.

"You are…beautiful," Aria breathed, reaching up to touch his face.

He abruptly pulled away, gently pushing her so that she sat upright against the tree again. He stood, the silver flask in his hands once more. He set his lyrium brands to glowing even brighter, then carefully handed the flask back to her.

"We have few hours left of watch. This should keep you warm," he softly, distantly stated, averting his eyes as she accepted the flask.

"Thank you. You are most kind," she replied, her voice breaking slightly as she reeled from his abrupt demeanor changes.

"No, my lady. Thank you," he murmured as he turned to walk away, not sure if she heard him or not. He walked back to his post across camp, masterfully keeping to the shadows so he would not be seen.

She was a puzzle to him. Cunning, skilled in many areas, and a master of two worlds. She lived in acute poverty but had the air and presence of nobility. Not the spoiled, haughty, holier-than-thou type of nobility but rather the type that exuded confidence, temperance, and quiet power. She was an assassin, of that he was absolutely sure and yet, she was a great humanitarian. She existed in purgatory between night and day, black and white, good and evil. She had the better qualities of both and still managed not to compromise them.

Aria had called him beautiful, despite the monstrosity he was. He had shown her the beast within, the demon grafted to his very skin, and rather than run away screaming as he wished she would have, she stood in awe of him. Maker bless her, she reacted the wrong way to everything. But, at the same time, it was the correct way. At least, it was what he wanted her to think of him. He had never even dared to dream that any woman could look past his flaws, his—curse—and still be enamored with him.

He sat down across camp from her, his eyes easily finding her even in the dark. She'd gone back to reading, the soft blue light from the luminescent stone she carried a muted, welcoming beacon in the night. He could just see her face, pale and wraithlike in the soft light. Her expression looked slightly vexed, her brows knitting together just enough to give the hint of internal disquiet.

After quite some time had passed, she lifted the flask to her lips. He watched as she drank a few swallows from the flask, a slight smile playing on her lips. She silently closed the book and stuffed the stone in the satchel at her hip, making her visible no more.

Fenris heaved a quiet sigh. For what good her statement had done him, he knew that she was somehow involved with the mage. The thought brought bile to his throat. To think of that heathen's hands on her, or anyone like her, made his blood boil.

He'd inquired about the nature of her relationship with the healer, seeking his information from the loose-lipped dwarf, the guard-captain, and her sweet sister. Bethany had said that Anders had deep feelings for her, but denied himself and Aria the pleasure of acting upon them. It was, in his opinion, the smartest thing the mage had ever done.

Further than that, Aria seemed to have rejected him, though not willingly. Varric had said the two used to be very close a short time ago, practically joined at the hip—and then something happened. What exactly, no one could say for sure, but Aria had grown cold towards the mage and he had often asked of her forgiveness. Fenris wondered just what Anders had done to turn her so.

The dwarf almost sneaked up on him, but he heard the soft snap of a twig just to his left about twenty yards away that alerted him to the other's presence. Fenris turned and smiled as Varric approached, catching the gleam of a returning smile from the dwarf's teeth.

"You are relieved, messere," Varric quietly said, holding out his hand to help the elf to his feet.

Fenris accepted and nimbly sprang up. "I stand relieved," he replied, bowing slightly and patting the dwarf on the shoulder before walking back into camp.

He sat near the extinguished coals of the fire, feeble warmth still radiating from them even in the dead of night. His elven ears perked as he eavesdropped the conversation happening between Aria and Anders.

"Anything I need to know?" Anders softly asked as he tightened Aria's blanket around her shoulders.

"It's been quiet," she replied, refusing to look him in the eyes. He noticed the silver flask she gripped in both hands, keeping her fingers warm.

"Isn't that Fenris's?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

"He gave it to me to keep me warm. It's very cold tonight; unusual weather for the Marches," Aria defensively answered him, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

He brought her closer than was really necessary and she fought the swoon that began to steal over her. She couldn't take the stormy sea her vessel was traveling this night. Ardor then rejection. Hot then cold. They were making her neck ache with their rapid mood swings.

"All you need have done is ask and I could have—"

"You were sleeping. I wasn't going to wake you for that," she quickly replied, gently pushing away from him. He caught her hand on his chest and she could feel the pronounced, slow thud of his heart beneath her palm. Her breath hitched in her throat.

Warmth flooded through her, much the same way it had when Fenris had held her. She delicately removed her hand from his and ducked her head, turning away from him. He sighed and watched her go, not sure what to say.

When she reached the camp, she saw Fenris sitting by the hastily constructed fire pit.

"Go to sleep, Fenris," she gently said, her voice sweet and soft. "We've a long way to go in the morning."

"I just wanted to make sure you had laid to rest first," he congenially replied, swiftly and lithely getting to his feet.

"Thank you. I'm all right," Aria kindly replied, turning for her tent.

"Are you?" Fenris asked, his voice bearing a note of reluctant challenge.

She looked back over her shoulder at him, smiling reassuringly, though there was a lingering sadness in her eyes. "I'm fine, thank you. Good night, Fenris."

"Good night, Aria," he said, watching her disappear beneath the heavy evergreen branch that served as her tent's flap.