Chapter SEVENTEEN

Fenris pulled Aria down into some low bushes and they watched to see who was on such rapid approach. The footfalls and heavy breathing continued up the road past them and soon were out of earshot. Just as they made to rise, however, the footfalls of what sounded like an entire garrison approached.

Surely enough, someone barked orders to make haste. Aria flattened herself on the ground, but a second later, Fenris yanked on her arm. They stood and he motioned for her to follow him. They silently went back to the cliff's edge. Fenris sat down and Aria did the same. He sheathed his sword and turned his head to listen as the garrison thundered past.

"You there! Stand and stay any weapons you may possess!" a rough voice called from behind them.

They stood and turned; Aria carefully put a look of surprise on her face. Three templars approached them. They wore full armour and two of them had their swords drawn. The third hung back a few paces with a crossbow nocked and ready to fire at them.

"Who are you?" the foremost templar asked, lowering his sword.

"I am Aria Hawke and my friend here is Fenris. Forgive me for asking, sers, but what's this all about?" Hawke responded.

"Hawke! By the Maker, what are you doing up here so late?" the front guard asked.

"I had a few too many celebrating my birthday and my companion escorted me here so that I may sober up and watch the spectacle of falling stars," Aria replied. "What's the commotion?"

"A mage has escaped the circle. He was accused of consorting with demons. Have you seen him?" the second closest templar said.

"The mage you seek was headed up the mountain trail. We only heard his footfalls," Fenris cut in.

"I wasn't talking to you elf," the second templar said with disdain. "Is what he says true?"

Aria bristled at the blatant display of disrespect and took a step forward. "As my reputation apparently precedes me, I must ask that you apologize to my companion. He is your ally; no one abhors mages more than this elf."

The second templar bristled visibly at this, but the first thumped him on the shoulder. He cleared his throat and said, "My apologies ser," and nodded at Fenris. Then he turned back to Aria. "Hawke, is what he said true? Did the mage continue up the mountain road?"

Aria nodded, though she felt very much the traitor for having done so. "It is. We did not see him, ser. However we heard footfalls hasten up the road shortly before you arrived."

"Thank you," the first templar said, motioning for the others to follow as they ran to catch up to their garrison.

They waited until the sounds of clanking armour and running footsteps was well gone before they started back down the mountain trail towards the city. Hawke silently fumed at herself. That could have been Bethany running away and she just sold out her own sister. For what? Fear? Self-preservation?

"You are ever a mystery to me," Fenris said after they'd made it halfway back.

Aria sighed. "Why is that?"

"You seek emancipation from the Circle for all mages and yet..."

"And yet I help the templars."

"Precisely."

"Fenris, my sister is a mage. You know this."

"And you were in love with a mage," he whispered.

Aria stopped dead in her tracks and rounded on him. "I don't expect you to understand. How can you? You've only known those hungry for power and felt the lash of the whip from it. Who I'm in love with or not is none of your concern."

She ran then. She called every ounce of stamina and strength within her and just ran. Aria knew her parting words had hurt him. Yes, he did indeed have the right to know who she had feelings for, as for this very moment, she would have done anything for that handsome, vicious, peculiar elf.

She ascended the steps to Gamlen's hovel by the time her wits came back to her and she realized that tears streamed down her cheeks. She angrily swiped them away and turned to the east where the sun was rising now. Her birthday was over and the real world had come back to bite her in the ass. Aria didn't go to bed when she got home. She was too angry. Too ill at ease. Her stomach roiled and her mind raced. She set about to cleaning, careful to be as quiet as a church mouse while she swept, dusted, scrubbed, and organized everything in the common area of the tiny house. She set the bouquets of flowers on the tables where she and Bethany did their crafting and stowed the rest of the gifts in her locked trunk. She stopped when her hands encountered the unopened parcel that surely had been Fenris's gift to her.

Aria carefully unwrapped it. When she held the gift up in the firelight to get a better look, she heard a gasp from the door of her bedroom. Bethany stood there, her eyes on the item in Aria's hands.

It was a beautiful, simple dress made of a somewhat iridescent shade of kelly green. The fitted bodice was lined up the left side with lilac hued lace and the pattern continued over the seams of the off-shoulder sleeves. It laced in the back. The skirt was formfitting and had a slight train. Up the right side of the skirt was a slit that would climb to about Aria's mid-thigh were she to put it on.

"Who gave that to you?" Bethany sleepily asked, running her fingers over the soft, somewhat shiny fabric. Her hair was a mess and Aria could still smell the wine on her breath.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Aria quietly answered, running her fingers over the intricate lace designs on the bodice of the dress. The lace formed little tendrils, caricatures of wispy, trailing vines that curled gracefully around the left side of the bodice and just over the hip.

"Anders?"

Aria winced at the name and shook her head slowly.

"Varric?"

"Fenris," Aria softly replied, knowing Bethany would go through every name of every person Aria knew before she would reach the elf's.

Bethany's eyes flew wide. "Fenris? But how... Nevermind. I don't want to know." She took a moment to look about the common room then looked back at her sister, her expression sad and troubled. "You have not been to bed yet, have you?"

Aria sighed. "I've been wrestling inner demons."

"Wrestling demons? Without me?" Bethany chided, hugging her sister before taking the dress from her. She folded it carefully and placed it in the chest.

"It's not funny. A mage may have been tranquilized last night, and I helped them find him."

"What are you talking about?" Bethany asked, aghast.

"Fenris took me up to the Point and we watched stars fall from the heavens. It was beautiful. But then, we heard what sounded like some poor fool running for his life. Before we could really make a decision to investigate, an entire unit of templars showed up."

The color had drained from Bethany's face and she looked as if she might be ill. "You helped them hunt him?"

"No!" Aria shot back defensively, a little more sharply than she had intended. "We simply said we heard someone running up the mountain trail and they followed what we said."

"What crime had the mage committed? Did they say?" Bethany queried nervously.

Aria shook her head. "What they always say. How are we supposed to know when they're telling the truth?"

"Maybe they were. Maybe it was a blood mage," Bethany offered.

"It would explain why they sent an entire garrison," Aria agreed.

"Did they know who you were?"

"Yes, and I had to rebuff one of them for being condescending to Fenris."

"You love him."

Aria didn't respond to that, she only busied herself with the task of dumping the dirty water in her cleaning bucket outside. The sun had climbed fairly high in the sky, just over the tallest buildings in the city. She could hear the calls of the shopkeepers as they began business for the day. She took a few moments to just center herself and calm the thrumming in her raw nerves before going back inside.

"You know, there's no shame in it," Bethany continued when Aria returned, stoking the dying fire in the hearth. She tossed on a few more logs before she regarded her sister with a look of earnestness.

"I'm not ashamed. I don't know if it's love. Infatuation, yes. Chemistry, yes. But love? Love is something...much more profound, much more intricate, much more...more...more..." She twirled her finger in the air, as if it would help her mind jolt itself into finishing that sentence.

"Just much more," Bethany finished for her addled sister.

"Yes," Aria replied, nodding almost frantically. "No," she amended, shaking her head vehemently. "I don't... I don't know," she said helplessly, sitting down on the floor cross-legged. She snatched one of her daggers off the workbench and began to whet the blade, smoothing dings and notches that had been made in their last use.

Bethany sat beside her and combed her fingers through her hair to straighten it somewhat while she watched her elder sister work. "You're not going to take Isabela into the Deep Roads, are you?"

Aria had to laugh at this. "Absolutely not. The darkspawn don't want to be seduced or screwed. They want to kill."

"Aria!" Bethany exclaimed in amusement.

"Well?" Aria retorted. "They don't."

"She'd probably take that as a challenge."

"I think you're probably right," Aria replied.

"I know you don't want me to go," Bethany quietly stated. "But I want to. I want to take out as many of those blighters as humanly possible for what they did to Carver and our home."

Aria sighed. "Bethany, this isn't about revenge. And if you die down there, well I daren't even return home. Mother would kill me on sight. That'd be two siblings I'd let down and that's just...beyond unacceptable."

"Oh for the last time, Aria, Carver's death wasn't your fault. I wish that... I wish that we knew then what we know now. Maybe things would have been different."

"Good morning, darlings!" Leandra's sing song voice greeted their ears then. "Up so early! Or is it the other way around?"

Aria and Bethany stood to embrace their matriarch then settled around the small, rough-hewn table that served for their dining pleasure. Bethany poured them all glasses of water from the pitcher. Leandra broke off pieces of fresh bread and bits of cheese for their breakfast.

"Did you finally realize what day it was?" Leandra chided once they'd tucked in to their meal.

Aria blushed. "Yes."

"She was teased awfully about it last night," Bethany defended, laughing.

"Knowing your cohorts, I don't doubt it," Leandra said in response. She regarded the bouquets on the table with a sad smile. "I miss the days of being young and hale."

"I'll be glad when they're over," Aria half-joked.

"Well then, you'd better find a husband of good station. I'm sure many of the Hightown bachelors would be all too happy-"

Bethany burst into a fit of giggles at this and Aria lightly kicked her under the table. Leandra looked from one to the other.

"Did I miss some secret?" Leandra asked mischievously. "Did someone propose already?"

Aria nearly squealed at the stab that sent to her already damaged ego. "No!"

Bethany giggled and shook her head, taking an oversized bite of bread to keep herself quiet.

"Oh. Good. I was only joking," Leandra laughed.

"Can't you biddies give a weary old man just a little peace and quiet?!" Gamlen shouted then from his room.

Aria threw her dagger at the door to his room, making sure that the pommel hit the door instead of her freshly sharpened bladed. It made a terribly loud thud when it hit, and was even louder still when it clattered to the floor. She stood to fetch it and met Gamlen as he whipped open the door. He saw the dagger laying on the floor and watched, wide-eyed, as Aria picked it back up and sheathed it.

"Did you just throw that at my door?!"

Aria twirled her other dagger with her wrist, stopping the movement a hair's breadth from his nose. She gave him her most devilish glare and he threw up his hands in exasperation.

"Heathens, Leandra! You raised bloody heathens!" he yelled, snatching his coat off the hook by the front door and blustering outside into the day. He slammed the door so hard that the bouquets wobbled.

"I'm proud of my heathens," Leandra said to the closed door. "And my heathens should be off to bed. I've half a mind to keep you awake all day to teach you a lesson—but I know how hard you work. Off to bed, little doves, so you can make use of the rest of the day whence you wake."

"I am well rested, mother. Did you need someone to accompany you to market?" Bethany chirped.

"That would be lovely," Leandra replied, looking to her exhausted eldest. "Bed, young lady. I suspect you've had a long evening."

Aria sighed, stood languorously, then stretched. She covered a yawn with the back of her hand. "Have fun," she said simply, kissing her mother's, then her sister's head before she trudged wearily into the tiny hole they called a bed room. "A rough evening indeed," she whispered as she lay her head down on the thin pillow. "And that's just the beginning I fear."