By gods forsaken, fate emptied of hope,

Wounded I fell then, by grief arrow-studded,

Never to heal, death for me come.

Andraste 1:6, 3-5

The speed and efficiency with which Arlathan had honoured its encumbering and painful promise to Tevinter might have made any country on the continent proud – the first ships of returned slaves had made port in the Imperium but a week after the ancient city state had received its recognition from both Tevinter and Antiva.

Some had thought that, secure along both of its borders, Arlathan had not wished to lengthen its torment; other, more pragmatic minds, had reasoned that given Starkheaven and Ferelden's threats, the Elvhen nation had seen wisdom in quickly returning the armies of their defenders to true strength. The haughty had mocked it as further proof of Elvhen compulsion to please, and well others had remained silent, as airing their thoughts might have pleased none.

This little nation, only five years in the making had an impressive fleet, and oddly skilled sailors, they might have said. If in five years they'd accomplished this, what might they have accomplished in another ten or twenty? Further, whatever internal enforcement mechanisms Arlathan held, it was obvious that it was implacable and tremendously well organised.

Regardless of size, no other country on Thaedas would have managed the deportation of a third of its population within two short weeks, nor did any other nation hold such a clear record of the exact provenience of its people. The Elvhen had not merely sailed all the returned property to Minrathous, leaving it to the Magisters to redistribute their slaves and haggle – no. The crushing majority of the returned elves had been brought to the port closest to the location where they had been stolen from, and thus Arlathan had reduced the effort the Imperium would have to pose to a minimum.

Some malcontents – mostly those Magisters who did not live in costal cities had still grumbled over transportation costs, conveniently forgetting that the man who had instigated the original rapture had no power to reverse it. Yet, none of it had mattered.

The sheer scale and speed of the deportations was still an impressive feat of government, and while Archon Radonis had not said as much out loud, he'd felt both torn and somewhat terrified. He'd not let the moment go to waste, though – the Elvhen were offloading Tevinter's slaves in numerous, yet controllable locations, and thus given him an opportunity of doing what no Archon had ever done before: an actual headcount.

And the numbers were staggering.

Which each new ship that offloaded its cargo, the dimensions of the economic and military disaster the Imperium had narrowly avoided became clearer and clearer, so much so, in fact, that after the first few days of the elven census, Radonis had ordered that the numbers be presented solely to himself. Even after the restoration of its Gods, Tevinter might have been crippled if the stand-off with Arlathan had lasted another half a year. If half of those returned rebelled…If only a quarter of them did, suppressing the tidal wave of fire and blood that would sweep the nation, while mines stood empty and fields fell fallow would be a disaster.

The threat of such an uprising had seemed remote during the first few days, for the first Elvhen ships had carried the truly willing and eager to return, but chains and whips had soon made an appearance. Wails, cries and curses had filled the air over the Imperium's harbours, and, with each day that passed without Flavius being returned, Radonis' heart had sunk further and further.

For the Imperium, firstly, but then, slowly, implacably, for himself.

He'd not let himself think of how much pain the inevitable meeting would eventually give him; fater thirty four years in power, and because he was closer to seven decades of life than sixty, Clodius Radonis had learned that worrying about future outcomes was an absolute pointless waste of precious time and mental resources. Even more, he'd learned to discern outcomes he could alter from those which were set in stone, and labour as intensely on the former as on minimising the consequences of the latter.

However, no one was utterly immune to a slither of hope – and, glancing at his battered, gagged and chained scribe, who had been been on the very last cargo ship to Minrathous, the Archon of Tevinter admitted to himself that neither age nor experience made him immune to this simple rule.

In his heart of hearts, he'd always known that Flavius was an above average mage, one that, had he benefitted from the same education, might have greatly surpassed many of the Archon's human Altus. The elven scribe was definitely far superior to Cassius' own scribe, which pointed to one unshakeable truth: Flavius had gone to Arlathan willingly, and that he'd not be willing to return.

Still, Radonis had dared hope that once he too, grasped the inevitable, Flavius would be wise enough to conceal his unwillingness, at least for long enough to slip it past Cassius; accept the inevitable, thing of his own well being and board the first ship, not the very last.

If that would come to pass, the Archon had promised himself that he would free his oldest companion in life, and let him return to wherever he wished to. For a short while, for as briefly as his correspondence with the leaders of the Elvhen city had lasted, the Archon had indulged that hope rather too much – Flavius had not written directly, nor had any document sent been in his hand. His advice had nonetheless been obvious in the drawing of maps and establishment of borders, while the Tevene version of Arlathan's independence proclamation had been perfect, even somewhat too perfect, with needlessly academic incursions into Old Tevene that Radonis had immediately recognised as his own.

Or perhaps they were always Flavius', Radonis thought, I've dictated to him since I was eleven, but I've read his compositions for the same length of time. We've worked words into phrases together for half a century…In the end, I gather neither of us could truly tell what is mine and what is his in our shared language.

The document that he had passed through Magisterium two weeks prior also clearly betrayed knowledge of the workings of the Imperium's legal system that a scholar in law might have struggled to master, and, in reading it the first time, Radonis had indeed allowed himself to hope. Until he had arrived at the last section, the one which regarded the return of Tevinter's slaves; the language was not outright clumsy, but it was not Flavius', and the too straight forward proposition showed no care to the punishments that an escaped slave might suffer, nor included the few legal loopholes a slave might have employed to escape them, which Flavius would have known all too well, as he had weaselled them out of the Archon years before.

That last part had not been written by Flavius, the Archon had known; he had not proofed it. Perhaps he had not even read it. And still, he'd hoped.

And he was hoping still.

'You bring me tenderised live elf, Cassius,' Radonis said, resting his chin on the back of his left palm. 'Ten times more disappointing than elk and pheasant, as it is bound and it has festered in its binds already. What made you think that I should need him in this state? If he were beef of choice you would not beat him so to make his flesh more pliant.'

'His own kin delivered him thus.' Cassius said, narrowing his eyes, but grinning wide. 'I know your grace you prefer that these wounds we inflicted upon him by me, and my loyal army of many, but thus he was delivered and thus I delivered him. A gift of a tender elf to you, from your most faithful apprentice, and the free city of Arlathan, your grace.'

Flavius' gaze gleaned across his, carrying no hope of willingness to pretend; in fact, his slanted green eyes shone with outright fury and defiance so fierce that Radonis thanked all the Gods, real or imaginary, winged or not, for the gag.

'I take this to mean,' Cassius smoothly followed, 'that the wisdom of the Tillani-Pavus motion was gladly accepted by all of our new allies in the Elvhen city-state. Well,' he mockingly reconsidered, giving the bound elf a rough nudge, and causing him to fall to his knees, for his ankles were tightly bound, 'perhaps not by all. Only by those who count. With this one's return, our business with them may be considered concluded.'

Despite his frozen, unreadable smile, Radonis inwardly shuddered, and quickly started calculating mitigations, or rather, looking for some way out of the trap he'd just been thrust into. Cassius was not alone; he had brought two of his Senate Altus – witnesses, Radonis angrily thought. If the accursed, petty man had come to gloat over Flavius' misfortunes alone, the Archon reckoned he might gladly have sent him out spinning before his treasured scribe could get himself into more trouble than he was already in.

While Cassius, the Archon considered, looking to his former apprentice with studied benevolence, was out to snatch as much of a victory as he still could2.

I stopped him from getting one ear off every returned elf, and now he'll make a point of turning one that he knows I hold dear to cinder, slowly.

'Thank you for returning my servant.' Radonis said, still hoping. 'Though I am assured you are as pleased by its condition as the butcher's dog might be, I might have hoped you would at least take care to wash it before you brought it in here. Still, I appreciate your celerity, and thank you, indeed, Magister Cassius. Now, leave my property to me.'

Before he speaks whatever storm of hatred that's raging in his heart and shining in his eyes out loud, in front of witnesses.

Cassius bowed, but, instead of stepping back he stepped forth, ripping the gag out of the elf's mouth, and yanking a fistful of his hair along with it; Flavius winced, and took a few pained breaths though his wide open mouth.

'An escaped slave,' the Magister casually reminded, 'may be not be lashed more than ten times, if he returns of his own will.'

'Your point?' Radonis shot back. 'This is a law I wrote. You need not recite it to me.'

Cassius adjusted his voice with a cough. 'Yes, I know,' he agreeably said. 'You also wrote that the will to return must be explicitly and clearly voiced.'

Manaveris Dracona, Radonis thought, no longer caring to distinguish Flavius' phrases from his own, when we wrote that we wrote it so that masters do not dispose of their slaves' lives on a whim. You, Flavius, said that before that change of wording all could proclaim their least favoured slave escaped, whip him to death, then claim money from the Imperium's soldiers for allowing the escaped one to go undetected. You, Flavius, put it as stamping out minor fiscal evasion from so many sources that it was actually relevant, but I knew what you meant, and we agreed to write it….though, in the back of my mind, I found the masters' legal ability to kill whomever they pleased was dangerous to an increasingly diminishing pool of resources... We agreed to write it, and tried to make the masters' liable for a slave's death, or at least face public embarrassment at being questioned for it.

However, Radonis remembered, not breathing in deeply, we both agreed that if we limit the masters' power in one way we must give it back in others.

Oh, Gods.

They'd also written that should the vocal, explicit, and witnessed renunciation of the ill deed was not offered, the slave in cause was to be considered an enemy of the state, and could be killed at leisure; further, if the escaped slave proclaimed his own freedom, against the laws of the Imperium, then he was to be put to pain and death in such a manner as to deter all others.

You know those words, Flavius, you wrote them, Radonis thought. You know them, now speak them.

'I will punish it by no more than ten lashes, once it admits it is mine to punish,' he said, looking Flavius in the eyes.

'After that, I shall take my leave, and gladly witness no more than ten lashes.' Cassius said. 'Once it admits that it is yours to punish.'

Radonis' glance crossed Flavius' once more, and all hope should have withered – but it did not.

'After you have your punishment, in view of these impartial others, and an admission of wrongdoing, I'll free you, Flavius,' Clodius Radonis said, rising to his feet, meeting and sustaining his scribe's glance. 'I swear.'

And though he knew the words, for he had written them himself, Flavius looked up at him, and bitterly smiled.

'You cannot free me. I am already free.'

All hope then turned to ash, and Radonis closed his eyes; in part because he did not wish for even a trace of emotion to escape them. In part, because he knew that if he would behold Cassius' smile for a mere heartbeat, he'd strangle him with his bare hands, in front of witnesses.

Which, Clodius Radonis knew he could not do. A lot of mitigation would have to happen before that.

'Look ye here,' one of the guardsmen said, turning away from the most recent captive, and standing to face Solas. 'Somebody left their dog untethered…'

He menacingly made for the cage, rattling the split stick he'd been using on the other elf; without a worry for himself, Solas took a step forth to face him in turn, still keeping himself out of arm's reach behind the bars of his cage. His gaze alone stopped the would-be punisher in mid step.

'It is me you have been sent to injure,' Solas repeated, not fearing he would reignite the man's ire, but actively wishing that he would. 'Why settle for a lesser target? Be brave. Draw blood from me, not him.'

The human did not move, though, and he dared not approach. Caught between what he thought might have been a display of courage to speak about to anyone who'd listen – for, truly, few could boast that they had seen the enemy of all the Gods with their own eyes, let alone lashed it to submission – and the blue, icy gaze of that same enemy of all the Gods, who did not look as if he would ever submit.

The glance that said there was never any wisdom in putting an arm into a tiger's cage just to see if it bit as hard as legend said it would.

Still, now the advance had been made, and he could not withdraw without losing face; he settled for an unsatisfactory mid way, and powerfully lashed the bars. The accursed elf did not even blink, and, for what was worse, the other elf laughed, as if his hands had not been tied behind his back and he too had a bite.

This, above all the guardsman could not countenance: being stared down by one of the bloody creatures, and then laughed at by another. He furiously spun on himself, and lashed his bound captive with such blind rage that he barely missed his own companion – the second human drew back, letting go of the prisoner, and looking to the man as if he'd been questioning his sanity.

The blow still landed, drawing blood, and it was not his sanity, the guardsman knew, that was in question, for though the elf hissed in pain, he laughed once more.

'Thank you,' he said, between gritted teeth.

'Wha'…' the guardsman stuttered.

'I said – Thank you,' the blonde elf repeated. 'Strike me so a few more times, and you'll be robbing unassailable Minrathous of quite the spectacle tomorrow. Thank you,' it said, after a second blow followed – the split stick was bloodied, and scattered crimson droplets over the second human's face as the guardsman lifted his arm to strike again.

'Oi,' the other human said, catching the furious guard's wrist. 'Enough.'

'D'ya hear how it just spoke to me?' the guard grunted.

'Aye, an' I also heard what it said,' his companion replied, wiping his face clean of blood in utter disgust. 'Leave be. The healthier it is, the longer it will roast.' He added, with a chillingly pleased undertone. 'Leave be.'

The guardsman hesitated for a second, but, in the end, saw wisdom. There was clearly no sport to be made here, not today, but there would be good sport tomorrow; it did not matter who would eventually put the crazy elf in his place, as long as he, and all the others like him were put in their places. And they would be, all of them to the last.

'I hope they put ya in the front row before that scaffold,' he nonetheless hissed at the caged one. 'It'd be well earned, as it's ya who put him on it.'

He spat to the side and stalked out of the cell.

As soon as the humans had gone, and the bar had been duly placed across the door, the blonde elf allowed himself a pained groan, and let himself slip to the floor. With his arms still bound, it took him a few painful movements to sit – free of the humans' presence, Solas allowed himself weakness in turn, and closed his eyes to hide from the other elf's pains, as well as from the fact that the guard's last words had found true aim. By his misjudgements…

'Do you know who I am?' he whispered; the blonde elf looked to him, with a frown of surprise.

'Of course,' he said. 'There was a city full of us, but only one of you.'

'And do you think…'

'No,' the other responded, shaking his head and smiling, despite the bruises and the still open wounds. 'You were right,' he added. 'I was placed here to cause you insult and injury, and, if I might be so daring, I would ask you not to allow them the pleasure for I certainly shall not. Gods,' the man whispered, 'when you and Abelas speak the language of the people your words sound like music. When I speak it, it sounds like nails upon a chalk board; it must be so offensive to your ears…'

'That you speak it at all is a wonder,' Solas said, softly, 'and well you speak it, lethallin. What I take offence in should be the last of your concerns…'

'Flavius,' the other offered. 'Flavius, most recently of Arlathan. A free man of Tevinter for the next, oh…sixteen or so turns of a clock's face. After which,' he sighed, looking to the ceiling, 'I will be either four pieces of a free man, heading rapidly in vastly different directions, or a handful of ash.'

Solas sat, as close to the other as the cage would allow him, and leaned on the same wall.

'I gather,' he said, 'that others found greater offence in your Tevene than I ever could find in your Elvhen.'

'I had choice audience,' Flavius chuckled, 'and so I spoke words that were rather choice, in turn. I am not sorry,' he said, still smiling, 'though I'll admit to fear, and that I would prefer the horses to the pyre... But - you look well,' Flavius amusedly said. 'To hear Cassius describe it, he'd turned you into a whimpering wreck.'

'Ah,' Solas bitterly chuckled, in turn. 'At the hands of Magister Cassius you found your way to this abode?'

'He was the river's final turn before my tumbling off a cliff,' Flavius answered, with a shrug. 'Still…'

The door drifted ajar, cutting his words off. There was no anger in its swing, no creak in its hinges, and Solas unwillingly braced, as he had long stopped doing under threat of bodily pain. He hastily stood again, not in respect but in surprise.

The Dread Wolf had only once seen the Archon of Tevinter so closely, on the day of disgrace that he continuously struggled to forget; the Ferryman's ring, though, was entirely recognisable, because it was not truly a ring. It was long, golden claw, designed to be placed upon the right hand ring finger of the bearer and Clodius Radonis used that very ring to softly close the door behind him.

There was no slam, no creak, no threat. Just an elegant, tall human growing old in his black velvet robes.

'You will recant,' the Ferryman of Tevinter and heir to Darinius said, towering above Flavius and paying Solas no heed, aside for a passing, disinterested glance.

'No, I will not,' Flavius said.

'You will recant.' Radonis repeated – and it was then that Solas, forgotten as he was, wanted that his kin would look upon the human with the same disgust he felt. He wanted for his lethallin to tell the human he was no master, and thus could issue no commands. 'Flavius,' the human said, in the same tone that, to Solas' ear, one might have used to command a dog.

To his surprise, however, Flavius had not heard the same thing, nor acted as a dog fearing punishment. The blonde elf merely narrowed his eyes. 'Clodius,' he said, 'my shoulders really ache. Do you think that you could…'

Without a word, the Archon of Tevinter made the ropes that bound his scribe's wrists loose enough for Flavius to wriggle his hands out and slowly rotate his shoulders.

'We're in deep shit,' the Archon sighed; the words made Solas frown and focus. It was not only the profanity, though it hardly fit the reports of Radonis as an excessively polite man – it was the familiarity that it implied…had he said we? Solas thought.

The words and the tone did not seem to surprise Flavius, however. He sighed in turn. 'I know,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'

'That's all you need to say, tomorrow. That you are sorry.' The human briskly replied.

'I know,' Flavius nodded. 'But I will not…not before Cassius and his lackeys, and not upon that scaffold. Because I don't regret the words,' he softly followed. 'I merely regret dragging you in troubled waters after me.'

'You know each other?' Solas asked, in Elvhen. Radonis frowned at the interruption, but the second glance he spared Solas was not hate filled – merely annoyed.

'Since we were two years old, yes,' Flavius chuckled, looking upon the Ferryman with undeniable warmth; the highest amid the slaving usurpers glanced back, and, for however much Solas had wished, there was no hatred and no resentment in his eyes, either. 'I probably introduced myself too briefly,' the other elf added. 'I am Flavius, of the House Radonis, most recently of Arlathan. And this,' he added, slowly gesturing towards the human, 'is my friend and brother, Clodius of the House Radonis, most recently of Minrathous, Ferryman of Tevinter and Heir to Darinius, who, for all his names and titles, cannot spare me or himself pain…I am surprised the two of you are not better acquainted,' he said, arching a questioning eyebrow.

'Yes, well, it would hardly have been practical for me to suddenly develop a taste for torturing elves precisely when there were none on hand,' Radonis muttered, in passable Elvhen. 'Plus, he was keeping Cassius busy, and hence out of my hair…Flavius,' he said, reverting to Tevene, and pointedly ignoring Solas, 'you will recant. I cannot give you to the hangman if you don't…Oh, kaffas.'

The human sighed, and tiredly sat down by Flavius' side, making Solas wish that he could have lent the two men privacy – whatever was about to happen here was not what he'd expected to see, nor was he sure he wanted to witness, because…

'I cannot even spare you the torture on the sly, old friend,' Radonis gently said. 'Due to your words, and before whom they were uttered, the entire city is expecting a full day's entertainment.'

'Sell tickets,' Flavius said, dryly. 'Should bring state finance back in line.'

'Stop jesting,' the Archon snapped. 'You've placed me in an impossible position – I have tens of thousands being forcefully returned; the entire country is sitting on a powder keg and I cannot be seen extending mercy to a rebel.'

'You speak as if it were you who was about to burn, not I,' the blonde elf scolded. 'And, by the way, you filed the independence motion wrong,' Flavius said – as if it had been a magic phrase, the Archon let his shoulder droop and rolled his eyes in a way that looked entirely too childish for his features. 'It should have been Pavus-Tilani, not Tilani-Pavus. P alphabetically comes before T, and no matter what Titus Pulli thinks, we do not file in order of political importance, we file in alphabetical order, because…'

'…political importance is transitory, while the alphabet is not,' the human groaned. 'Is that what you are worried about now?'

'Seems like a more pleasant thing to contemplate than in which horrid way I'll die tomorrow.'

'You will not die in any horrid way, tomorrow. You…'

'How is it faring, by the way? The motion, I mean.' Flavius asked, in a sorrowful whisper. 'Did all this cruelty and treason yield any…'

'Homo homini lupus,' Radonis answered, in the same sadness riddled tone. 'I guess it holds true for your people as well.'

The Archon shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts, then tried to smile.

'Well, I am pleased to inform you that the courts of Antiva, Rivain and the Chantry did not notice the Altus Pulli's misfiling, and have granted Arlathan statehood. Orlais is dithering, but that is what they do. I have private assurances that they will grant Arlathan a decree in good time.'

Solas' heart skipped a beat, and though he'd removed himself to the farthest and darkest corner of his cage, he could not help but breathe an audible sigh of surprise. Radonis looked his way, this time, intently, and nodded, for him alone; the elf unwillingly lowered his glance.

They did it, Solas thought, before he could supress the notion. A battle hard won, at a terrible price… a battle, not the war, but…

'Free Marches and Ferelden?' Flavius further inquired; Radonis shook his head.

'Ferelden seems determined to only roll over when it dies. We have Kirkwall, but not Starkheaven, so not the Free Marches as a whole – but they cannot reach your borders unless they invade Antiva, and I am sure you're better able to list all of the treaties they would be breaking if they tried, so…We'll worry about them another day.'

'You'll worry,' Flavius corrected, with heart-rending simplicity.

The human pressed his index and ring finger to his forehead.

'I cannot save you, Flavius,' Radonis said. 'My hands are tied, and you have tied them - we've worked, so hard, to establish law and not whim rules this land; this is our life's work, not only mine. We both knew that if we put our thoughts into that very law, the powers of the Archon's office would be greatly reduced. I cannot pardon you; I cannot even commute your sentence. Recant,' Radonis said. 'Now, in writing – I'll take dictation, if you wish; you will still need to sign it, and I will bring sufficient witnesses to drown out any doubt.'

'If Tevinter were a man, and that man was you, Clodius, I'd never have left it.' Flavius said. 'I left…'

'…to make a point, and now, that point is made. Recant the freedom claim,' the Archon repeated. 'Please,' he said, closing his eyes. 'Please, if you stand on that pyre in the morning, in defiance of the Archon himself, there will be hundreds upon hundreds of other pyres. So many of your returned people will be in the city tomorrow…'

The blonde elf looked to the ill lit ceiling.

'You should not mock poor Titus Pulli for once,' Radonis said. 'Your…well now his desk is groaning under the weight of so many complaints, claims of withheld slaves and compensation demands that even you would go mad…'

'They are just beasts, aren't they?' Flavius asked, grinding his teeth. 'Insatiable, ravenous beasts. Your fellow Magisters…'

'Be that as it may, those who travelled on those last ships will be in chains, waiting to be given to some human or another. They will be here, and witness your torment, or hear of it – you cannot be rebellious without encouraging rebellion, and if you instigate rebellion, Flavius, it will be quashed without mercy, with far more cruelty than one day's torment.'

'Their ashes on your soul,' Flavius shakily said.

'And on yours, friend,' Radonis replied, 'for not stopping what you alone can still stop. Think not of me, or any greater implications if you no longer care. Still, Delia Aurelia and your sons deserve much more than watching you tortured, mere hours after hoping you'd returned…'

'Don't even think to bring them there,' the elf angrily snapped. 'Don't you descend in vulgus, now…'

'I bloody well should,' the human snapped back.

'The boys don't even know that I'm their father.'

'Yes, because Aurelian is dim by nature, and Delius can't read to save his life,' Radonis muttered. 'Of course they know that you're their father, you foolish, foolish man!'

The blonde elf paused, and looked to his hands in silence for a moment spun out enough for Solas to understand unmentionable truths about his fellow captive: a human friend, a human bonded mate and human children, and still, he'd gone to Arlathan, only to be traded back as merchandise.

A man's life, fully lived and perhaps happy, for a square foot of land.

'It is not in you to allow Delia Aurelia anywhere near Imperator's Square tomorrow,' Flavius blandly said. 'People may only see the Ferryman, at times, and cast you in the dark shadows of those who went before you, but I know you better – Delia and my sons have been in Vyrantium for weeks, if not for months.'

The Archon breathed out hotly, and looked away.

'Not for months,' he yielded. 'But I sent them away as soon as the motion was so wrongly filed. Livia is with them, now, so Delia…'

'…has a shoulder to cry on.' Flavius said, softly. 'Or, eyes to scratch out. Whichever may come first. How odd,' he whispered. 'We have been friends our entire lives, and still our women hate each other.'

'It is, perhaps, because you took the one you chose, and I took whom I had to,' Radonis answered. 'I think that tears are far more likely. Take pity on the only one who cannot shed them, Flavius,' he whispered. 'Recant the freedom claim. Your blood is already on my hands. Don't let your ashes rain upon my soul as well…'

The slave gazed kindly upon his master, then sighed and closed his eyes. 'You know,' he slowly spoke, 'I never envied you…Even less so after we won that ring of yours. Yet, even before that, Clodius, you…You were brought into this world to be a vessel of ghosts, a calculated investment, never a child…and, you…you acted as if you knew it and were resigned to it, in a way that was unnatural; you could not stomp in a puddle and just enjoy getting dirty…'

'As I recall,' the human frowned, 'we did that quite a lot.'

'Yes,' the elf said, smiling, 'because I dared you, like I dared you to jump from that stupid tree into the haystack, and you missed the haystack…'

'…and now, sixty years later and on the hour of your death, you are still mocking me for it,' Radonis said, smirking.

'I don't think I have laughed that much before, or ever since. It was glorious,' Flavius chuckled.

'I could have died,' the Archon earnestly protested.

'The tree was six feet high, and you landed in freshly scooped chicken muck. You couldn't have died – the worst that could have happened was that you would get a stern telling off and I would get clipped over the ear for encouraging you to do something…normal. I was as deep and philosophical as any other six year old, so I did not think it at the time, but,' the elf followed, warmth draining from his voice, 'and,' he humourlessly jested, 'by your will, I was indeed exposed to philosophy, that image of you, after you'd stood up, lingers because you were neither scared, nor angry at me for laughing, you were not even ashamed at having turned yourself into a walking horror of hay and bird poop…You simply looked guilty.'

Radonis looked away.

'Not the guilt of a caught bandit, composing himself for fear of punishment, Clodius. Gods merciful,' the elf sighed, 'it looked as if your entire family, if not the whole of the Liberalum, had jumped with you from that branch, and you had utterly failed them by missing the haystack; it was as if you knew that now, there was no hiding our caper, and that it was your fault that I would be punished – it was as if the little boy you were had, for an instant, become as old and riddled with responsibility as the foundations of the House Radonis itself.'

'I saw that growing in you with every year that passed, until we found better uses for haystacks than jumping in them. All those around you, even I and the kitchen maid with whom I was merrily employing those haystacks, had a life. You merely had a purpose, and for the grace with which you bore that purpose I loved you and I love you still – but Clodius, you cannot, and should not, shoulder the guilt of all the ghosts that you never chose to embody. My blood is not on your hands, nor are my ashes on your soul. It's on this land, such as it is, and the land will soak up blood, and sweat, and tears, and remain as indifferent to ashes as it has been for millennia.'

'I thought that we were changing that,' Radonis said, softly.

'Time lost its patience,' Flavius responded. 'So did I.'

'And still, I would have never guessed you were so bitter…'

'Bitter?' the elf scoffed. 'I was raging! How long did they debate the ten lash rule, in Magisterium, Clodius? You might not remember it, but I distinctly do: it was eight months, my friend, eight months, during which I sat by your side, watching a room full of fat, contented lice, who'd never even felt one lash of a whip, debate whether ten was quite enough or fifteen should be more appropriate!'

'I,' he said, though gritted teeth, 'would hate Veldrin Pavus and go to the pyre cursing her name, if I did not think that sitting there and watching them talk of her people, my people as if they were no more than furniture was not in itself a brand of Hell that is for elves alone, and that she will be burning in it for far longer than I will last in the flames tomorrow…You cannot save me, for I shan't be saved,' he added, his voice dying to a whisper, 'but if you'll grant me one last wish, make sure that Pavus and Tilani sit right beside your throne tomorrow and watch it all.'

'They bought you your borders,' Radonis neutrally noted.

'Indeed, they did. So, I would gladly have them know the price they have not paid themselves. Do you not see?' Flavius said, shaking his head. 'I fear tomorrow, but it had to be me, Clodius, for both them and you; that's why I waited, that is why I fought to the very end - the price cannot be left hypothetical, it cannot be a faceless, nameless number of slaves on pyres across the land, a statistic compiled by a bored human questor, who thinks ten elves more or less are in the margin of error...It has to be me, so that they remember. So that you remember.'

We are, Solas numbly thought, the last of the Elvhen. Never again shall we submit.

'I understand,' the human tiredly said.

He gathered himself and rose to his feet, looking heavy and awkward. He breathed out something that, to Solas' ears, sounded like a sob, but hastily breathed it back in.

'These are your last words to me, then?' he asked, looking over his shoulder to his slave.

Flavius tried to smile. 'I could remind you that the Ferryman of Tevinter not only wields the ring of Darinius. He also wields the Blade of Mercy.'

'It fell out of fashion quite rapidly after you left,' the Archon dryly said, looking to the door as if, despite his age, he'd been thinking of darting straight through it. 'Anything else?' he asked, with his back turned.

The blonde elf paused, then shakily struggled to his feet, his hands finding aid on every crevice of the wall behind him – he'd all but been standing when he slipped, and might had fallen to his knees if Radonis had not turned to catch him.

Still, one man was injured, and the other was old, thus they both staggered and came down to the ground upon their knees. Both winced, in shared pain caused by different reasons, and their embrace grew as tight as their lives, in the same world, had been apart.

'Take care of my sons,' Flavius whispered.

A dagger glinted in the sorrowful light of one half wet torch.

'Always,' Radonis said, placing his hand on his friend's forehead. Solas was too slow to stand, and even slower to understand what was unfolding before his very eyes, for what he first guessed as Flavius' blood upon the cold stones of the floor was not the elf's blood.

'No, Clodius, no,' Flavius begged, as his feet started shaking beyond control. 'No, please, no…'

'You were right,' Clodius Radonis soothingly spoke; the tremor seemed to ascend the blonde elf's spine, and his hands flapped haplessly, like the wings of a flightless bird. 'You did have a life while I only had a purpose. I am sorry,' the Archon of Tevinter said, as Flavius' eyes started rolling, madly. 'I loved you more than any man, and I will avenge you...I will, my brother. I swear.'

Flavius' eyes stopped rolling and the Archon stopped speaking; he held his friend's limp body to his chest until all tremors had passed, and the elf's eyes were utterly empty and glassy, still, not deprived of life. The will-less body then withdrew by itself, crawling back to the wall.

Radonis stood, and lifted his sleeve to behold the place where he'd deeply thrust the dagger into his own flesh. He slowly sheathed the dagger, then carelessly wiped out the small circle he'd drawn with its tip by dragging his foot across it.

'You…' Solas breathed, in true fury grasping and shaking the bars of his cage. 'You owned that man's life and body, you robbed him from himself the day that you were born!'

'Your point being?' Radonis asked, painfully feigning indifference.

'When you were done with his life, you robbed him of all dignity in death!' Solas growled.

The Archon of Tevinter looked upon the caged wolf, and slowly shook his head, in something that painfully resembled pity.

'There is no dignity in death,' Clodius Radonis replied, clenching his jaws. 'Death stands alone – neither heroic, nor meaningful, for as much as we would like to think it so. If you had ever been truly responsible for anything other than your own…dignity, you might have learned that in the thousands of years you count.'

Uuh, long, sad and charged - and updated a bit.

Thank you for reading and commenting,

Cheers,

Abstract & IvI