Good lord, working on Black Friday sucks. I'm dozing off on my keyboard right now and I still have another 2000+ words to write for another story that I'm working on. Happy Friday by the way. Enjoy!

It had nearly been a week since Ven and Fenris had arrived at Skyhold. The castle had been abuzz with rumors about the two Elven men from the moment they'd entered the Main Hall. Solas had heard his fair share of scandalized gossip amongst the Orlesian nobles about the savage Inquisitor not learning anything from spending time in civilized culture and sharing her bed with a Tevinter slave. It made Solas' blood boil a bit, if he was being honest with himself. It had been bad enough when the people of Skyhold thought that Ellana was sleeping with the Commander and that had just been baseless gossip since they were friends, but this was something they could actually use against her.

It all depended on the angle the people of the court were going to use to cause the most damage. Fenris was the name that was being thrown around the most since he was sleeping with the Inquisitor, who everyone had thought incapable of romance, even though the woman had set Commander Cullen up with little effort. Fenris also had no ties that would help him against the court. Though, the Tevinter elf paid their whispers little mind and went about his days normally.

Dorian seemed to be particularly amused by Ellana's choice in bed partners, joking about it loudly whenever she passed through the library. "I now know why you had an extensive vocabulary on offensive words in Tevene. You no doubt heard them more than once in the throes of passion," Solas heard Dorian tease from the level above him.

It made Solas cringe that Dorian was a large help in the gossip mill getting information about Ellana.

"Oh yes, and I bet you learned plenty of elven when my brother had you against the Tavern wall last night?" Solas nearly dropped his paints, his brush clattered to the floor instead. He hadn't heard about that. What was Ven thinking?

"That hardly counts, he was snarling at me and attempting to protect your honor," Dorian snapped, sounding extremely displeased with Ellana's crude insinuations. Ah, yes, a noble from Tevinter consorting with a lowly Dalish Savage.

She snorted, and Solas could picture her rolling her eyes, not believing a word that Dorian was saying. Solas would pay real coin to see the look on Dorian's face. It would more than likely tell the real story about the night before. "That's not how he told the story, but I'll take your word over my brother's. Ven has been known to…exaggerate certain details. When you're researching with him next, remind him that I can defend my own honor."

The volume of their conversation toned down and they'd obviously moved to Dorian's little alcove for some kind of privacy, which left Solas with his half-finished fresco and a drying paint brush still lying on the floor.

He sighed, he was going to need to clean that before continuing…

It was nearly an hour later when he heard the door to the rotunda open from the battlements with a little more force than necessary, resulting in a loud echo to go through the room. The smell of fresh snow and iron filled the room. It was an odd combination, but one that Solas found familiar and soothing. It reminded him of Skyhold, which, much to his horror was turning into some kind of home for him.

The quiet footfall of bare feet filled the room and Solas turned to see Fenris come into view. The elf usually spent his time with Hawke and Varric, or exclusively near Ellana. Out of all the times that he'd come in from courtyard, Fenris would go in through the Great Hall. It didn't seem like Fenris was a man to deviate from a pattern. Solas' curiosity was peeked. What had changed that would having him avoiding Hawke and Varric, since they would be the first two to intercept him in the hall?

Solas knew that the warrior spent the majority of his days training, even going so far as to help Cullen and Bull train the soldiers. The elf was a monster on the battlefield, wielding a great sword that even Bull had a hard time lifting with one hand. He'd seen Fenris with The Iron Bull, the two seemed get along, even going so far as to speak in Qunlat together. It was a horrifying sight to behold, one that Solas found highly disturbing. It grated on him to hear one of The People speaking the language of the Qun flawlessly.

When he'd asked Ellana about the different tongues Fenris spoke she shrugged her shoulders with a proud grin on her face. "He's a quick study for learning languages. He picks them up extremely fast. He knows how to speak five fluently. Elven being his most recent acquisition."

He was a man of many hidden talents, or so Ellana claimed and Solas was beginning to see why.

Though, he looked a bit different this afternoon, he was missing his usual broadsword, as well as his gauntlets and armor, which were replaced with a practice weapon and light under-armor showing off more his musculature and markings than normal. They were exact replicas from Arlthan and Solas had been attempting to find contacts to help him figure out how a Tevinter magister had figured out how to replicate them without another Ancient elf to assist him.

Fenris' green eyes drifted over to Solas and then towards the door to the left. It was akin to trapped animal hoping to make a quick escape from a predator. Skyhold seemed to make Fenris nervous and a little twitchy. Solas guessed that it was all the ancient ambient magic in the air irritating his markings. The lyrium lit up a little bit when he entered the room, causing the elf to turn and look at Solas in something akin to alarm.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Solas questioned the warrior. He'd been wanting to ask about his markings since he'd first seen them, but had yet to get the chance to talk to him alone.

"There's little I'd want to discuss with you," he responded briskly, moving past Solas and towards the exit. His markings began to glow slightly the closer he was to Fenris and the warrior tensed as he moved, almost a complete blur of motion, towards the door.

"I was wondering if your markings were bothering you," Solas said right before Fenris had put his hand on the door to leave and within a blink of an eye Fenris had grabbed Solas by the neck and lifted him off the ground. The paints and brush clattering to floor. It seemed that he didn't need his gauntlets and sword to make his hands any less deadly and Solas was paying for that mistake rather dearly.

Solas braced his hands against his desk to give a bit of leverage to make it easier to breathe. Fenris wasn't quite crushing his windpipe yet, but his grip was rather snug.

Fenris brought Solas close to him, "Let me make this abundantly clear to you, mage. I'm grateful that you have helped Ellana, but that does not mean that I trust you. Ellana and Ven both claim you have secrets. The last time that I knew a mage with secrets he blew up a chantry and started a war," the warrior squeezed Solas' throat a bit tighter before continuing, "if you so much as attempt to hurt Ellana, I will rip your heart out of your chest before you even realize that it's missing."

Fenris shoved him back into his desk, causing a book to tumble to the ground with an echoing clatter, before leaving the rotunda. He made sure to slam the door on the way out, just for good measure. Solas gripped his throat and winced, it was going to look awful if he didn't take care of it right away. He carefully applied healing magic to it before it started to swell. Maybe asking about his marks had really been a bad idea after all.

It seemed that Fenris was more dangerous than he had originally thought. Solas knew that the warriors of old that were marked like Fenris had immense skill in battle, but he hadn't thought that Fenris would have so much control over them. The Immortal warriors had needed hundreds of years to master their marks, and Fenris only had a decade or so with his. If the Dread Wolf was going to rise again, Solas realized suddenly, that he was more than likely going to need to kill Fenris and it was going to be more challenging than he'd originally thought. He let out a pained sigh.

His throat was still going to bruise. Damn.

"So, Fenris said hello to you?" A teasing voice asked from the archway by the stairs. He turned and saw Ellana watching him heal himself as she leaned against the archway with a practiced ease only a rogue could have.

"That was a hello?" Solas croaked.

"He tried to rip Dorian's heart out, if that makes you feel any better," Ellana replied with a shrug.

It didn't.

"But then again, that only happened because he mentioned the markings, which I bet you did as well. I suppose that I should have warned you that they were a really touchy subject to bring up in front of him?"

Well, that advice would have been good before he had met the prickly elf, but Ellana wasn't one to give away secrets. She gave Solas a look when he didn't respond right away and he sighed. "I might have said something."

Ellana rolled her eyes, waving a hand up dramatically, "Mages, you need to mind your own business. Leave his markings out your conversations and you won't need to worry nearly as much about him trying to kill you."

She walked over to him and leaned against his desk waiting for him to respond. Ellana knew that Solas was dying to get some kind of information out to her. "Do you know the true history behind those marks?"

Ellana raised a pale eyebrow questioningly and Solas sighed. Did she truly have no idea what she was sleeping with? Did her mother not warn her of the dangers of warriors like Fenris? "They were given to warriors of a certain birth status in Arlathan. Not everyone had the capability of using them and it made them extremely volatile and dangerous."

Ellana gave a small knowing nod, but there was a fond smile on her face. "I'd been told as much, as has Fenris. If you're worried about his parentage, don't bother. There isn't anything to find. The clans in my area all tried to track his father down, none were successful."

She had jumped to the wrong conclusion. He could care less about who Fenris' father had been. Solas didn't care to find another Ancient elf, as interesting as berating that that elf would be for sleeping with, and procreating with, a modern-day elf.

Solas rolled his eyes at the thought of a group of Dalish clans, with a few Ancients or not, attempting to find the identity of a child of their beloved pantheon. "He's dangerous, Ellana." Solas warned, hoping that she could see some kind of reason. He had seen armies decimated by warriors like Fenris and if he tore down the veil Fenris was going to be at the mercy of Elgar'nan.

"Yes, well that can be said for everyone person I spend my time with," she replied truthfully, looking at his artwork, eyes lingering on the wolves, "some more than others."

Ellana wasn't wrong and the more that Solas thought about what he had just told her, the more he could also classify that he had been talking about himself.

Solas wasn't quite sure if that was directed at him or not, but Ellana pushed herself away from the desk, leaned forward towards Solas, and tapped him on the nose. He went crossed eyed for a moment before looking back up to Ellana. "Don't fuss over my safety so much, Solas. I can handle myself. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you jealous that I have another wolf in my life," she said with a wink before leaving him to his paint.

She knew.

I hope you enjoyed another installment of: Solas eavesdrops and something life shattering happens. Anyway, there will be more plot progression come next chapter...I think. Who knows.

Thank you to everyone that has Favorited, Followed and Reviewed. It's a nice thing to do and I really appreciate it.

Now, I gotta go and finish up my word quota for today. I have 40,600 words and I need to have around 43,000 before I got to sleep tonight. NaNoRiMo is almost over and I'm so close to finishing. I'm just so tied. =(

See you all next week,

Animerocker