Fenris led the strange Free Marcher back to his Master's city property. He couldn't begin to work her out at all.

She was from Kirkwall, the City of Chains but beyond that all he knew was that his master held several contracts there, bringing in new slaves for the Imperium. Being a constant shadow at his Master's side, Fenris knew much of his business - Danarius' slavers were everywhere around Thedas, rounding up the poor, the gullible and anyone who was unlikely to be missed.

She didn't seem like someone who might have heard of Danarius through those dealings however. In fact, he still couldn't see exactly what she did know about him. His master had first steered towards her the previous night, drawn to new prey that he could manipulate and probe for new information as soon as he had heard the announcer on the door mention her connection to the Free Marches. From the moment Danarius had snared her attention, Fenris had found her a puzzle. She had been quick in her comebacks, matching Danarius toe to toe as so few people did. Fenris at first had thought her shrewd, smart, except for the fact that she was flirting back with Danarius of all people and as far as Fenris had been able to tell, falling for all of his tricks. Not that Fenris could fathom or dare to ask what game it was his master was playing with her.

Her manner had been easy, laidback, as if she knew exactly what she was doing and Fenris had admired that. After all his time observing the citizens in the halls and streets of Minrathous, he could recognise anyone who was good at showing exactly what they wanted to be seen. Her gown was cheap but passable for the current fashions, though greatly outclasses at this ball, though she seemed proudly unconcerned, or dangerously ignorant of this fact and she continued to play her part well. Yet this all revealed her to be just like the other humans he knew, hiding their true face, playing their part in their hungry quest for power and so he had observed her more closely, assessing the risk she might pose to his master.

As they had parted ways at the end of the evening she had apparently leapt on the chance to visit Danarius' home, to see his treasures and Fenris came to decide that she was yet another woman aspiring for a boost in her fortunes, perhaps only playing dumb to the fact that the man she happened to have latched on to was one of the more powerful players in Minrathous. She was questing after his power and he realised he would have to try to ascertain her intentions as they arranged for him to guide her through town the next day.

But then her eyes had fallen on him. He had been caught in the depth of her golden gaze and something in them left him questioning all of the conclusions he had drawn around her.

At midday, as he stood on the steps of the Magisterium, he caught sight of her heading towards him across the square and once again his estimations of her were unbalanced. He thought she had been about to turn away, perhaps coming to her senses over what she was walking into but that moment clearly passed. Instead she marched determinedly onwards, intent to claim her prize and he realised his strange hesitation over her had simply been a figment of his wandering mind at the end of a long evening on his feet. Here was a calculating woman and he must remain constantly aware and hyper vigilant of her dangerous intent.

It was rare that he was sent to complete any assignment that was not directly at his master's side but in this case, he understood why Danarius had allowed it. Perhaps the Amell woman had requested his guidance, but it provided Danarius with the perfect opportunity to use his most trusted guard to scope out the possible threat, before leading her straight into the middle of his estate. Danarius may have perfected the cool, immoveable exterior but he did not take chances in regards to his own safety, a fact Fenris knew all too well.

So he continued to watch the woman, as she followed him through the streets, as she arrived at his master's house and as she wandered through the halls, giving a keen impression that she was perfectly at ease there. Yet he also noticed how her gaze kept lingering on him when she could turn surreptitiously, always when Danarius himself wasn't looking at her. Which he found was rare.

The Lady Amell returned the next day, and the next week, and when her welcome with the friends of her family she had in the city grew short, she found a place in the house of Magister Danarius, for it seemed that her sharp wit and clever tongue had quite charmed his master.

Meanwhile, Fenris more than noticed her lingering attention on himself.

It was not long after she had begun regularly visiting the magister that she once again requested time alone with Danarius' personal bodyguard. It was unusual enough as it was, and Fenris should have realised the situation earlier when his master had accepted her proposal and Fenris had been issued to accompany her through the streets on what turned out to be a pointless excursion, an errand run into the marketplace that any servant could have accomplished.

With gentle wheedling by this Lady Amell, Danarius allowed her to walk alone with Fenris more often. Sometimes small visits into the city, sometimes just a task in another part of the mansion. Despite the strangeness of this, Fenris couldn't help but appreciate how his duties lessened. Spending time apart from his master was greatly unsettling at first, something he had never experienced for long periods any time in his memory.

The day that they were walking through town and Fenris realised she had taken him on nothing more than a sightseeing tour of the city, he grew anxious. He had no certainty of when they were heading back, no definite plan to follow and he found himself breathing quickly. A tight pressing on his chest, simply from not knowing when they were going home. He berated himself, it was foolish, his master had allowed this separation and he was with Danarius' ward, yet the sound of blood rushing through his ears made it difficult to push the threat of punishment away.

But Lady Amell took his hand as he stared at the ground. He jumped at the contact but she didn't pull back. She smoothed her fingers over his skin, hushing him and led him to a quiet place, off the main street where she sat him down. She talked softly and calmly and his senses came back to him until he took his hand back from hers. She seemed reluctant to relinquish it but he was equally eager to brush this event aside, pretend it had not occurred. He suggested, a little impatiently, that they return to the mansion and she had looked at him sadly but nodded in agreement and followed him home.

She didn't say it, but Fenris knew that she kept finding these excuses to draw him away from Danarius and reluctantly, Fenris began to grow used to it. He began to enjoy her company, her idle and amusing chatter, how she was so very different to his stern, volatile master.

She pried him away from the tight grasp Danarius bound him into, taking him from the rigid regime of service and gave him a strange respite. She was funny and kind, too kind, she would call him by name, tell him to call her Hawke and to look at her, meet her eyes as an equal, not to stare at the ground. She asked about his life. He had to admit, under her urging, that he didn't remember anything before becoming a servant, and the look of disgust and sadness in her face caused him to recoil back. She had quickly reassured Fenris it was not a reaction to him, only the life he was forced to endure. Fenris was taken aback by the fact she was worried she had upset him. After that she kept her questions to what life was like in the service of Danarius.

He couldn't tell her the truth, not all of it, and it was only when he asked himself why that he began to realise the problem he had fallen into. It wasn't out of any loyalty to his master that he kept the cruel beatings and tales of painful, punishing magic to himself. Instead he realised that it was out of fear. Fear that, because she seemed happy here, if he revealed the true nature of the man she was growing closer to, she might run away, leave him to return to the life he thought he had been used to.

He came to realise that when he caught her looking at him, it was because his eyes were already on her. He couldn't help but wonder, was she feeling the same way he did? Only that was ridiculous.

The fear grew in him and he struggled to explain it to himself. He feared that he would lose this spark that had come into his life, the one glimmer of happiness he found as he spoke with her in the solitude of their wanderings, or in the dark of the night when she had convinced Danarius to dismiss him from his chamber. He had never known anything like it. In all his memory, he had never dared to imagine that there would be something he might eagerly look forward to as he did the days when she would take him away all to herself.

Even as he feared more and more that she would leave, he realised that he wanted her to get herself out of here. His strange attachment to her was only increased as he couldn't deny her returned interest in him. Yet that only fed the fear, a dependent relationship like a master that relies on his slaves, while the slaves can't survive without their master. Fenris found that his desire for her safety outgrew the leeching worry that she would leave, he cared more about her being free from Danarius than the selfish desire to keep her close.

Over the months this was happening, Fenris also noticed, to his horror, that Danarius was growing ever closer to her. His master let his guard down more, Hawke managed to get away with more and more, which she used to her advantage in convincing him to let his most trusted slave out of his sight, just for another hour, another evening, another day. Fenris spent more time with Hawke and all the while he watched Danarius falling for her.

And that terrified him.

He began trying to make her leave. He finally admitted the truth of his story that he had been keeping from her. One quiet evening when they were once more alone, hiding in a far wing away from the prying eyes of other servants, he told her of the first memory he could recall. The burning agony of the lyrium implanted under his skin, giving him deadly power unlike any other. He was the result of a dangerous experiment, making him into an even more dangerous prize. He told her how cruelly Danarius treated his slaves. That in the favoured position Fenris was held, he received both the best and the worst of his master's treatment, something that so far Danarius had managed to keep from Hawke, though surely he couldn't keep it private for much longer.

All of this he divulged in the hope Hawke would grow scared herself, fearful of the web she was becoming tangled up in and that she would decide to get herself out of harm's way.

It seemed to work. Hawke began reminding Danarius that her stay was temporary, that she would need to be moving on soon. These murmurings appeared to affect Danarius unexpectedly. Fenris recognised the signs of his master trying to tighten his grip, to hold her to him. Fenris couldn't admit that he didn't want to let her go either, but it was better for everyone involved. Everyone that mattered.

Then she privately told Fenris news that chilled him to the bone at the same time his heart leapt. What he had told her of the true nature of the magister, she had taken as a sign she needed to release them all. In the night she was lit with a fire of determination, an intensity in her he didn't know how to discourage. And when she reached for his face, cupping it in her hands, he didn't flinch away.

He told her he wanted her to leave, he wanted to free her from Danarius.

She kissed him then, a soft tentative press of her lips that allowed him at any moment to pull away, but he pressed back, he pulled her against him and she promised, whispering into his skin, against his throat, that she would see the same for him. She would see him free of Danarius, free to lead his own life. And she wanted to be at his side.

She said that she had seen him at the ball, when she first met Danarius. She had been drawn to him, though she couldn't say why. And she had decided then to follow him, not Danarius and she had only grown to hate Danarius the longer she stayed for the sake of Fenris.

No, he tried to tell her. This cause is too big for you. You don't understand what you're getting into. He knew something in his tone, or his face must have got through because she had held him tenderly then, looking into his eyes, kissing him softly on his eyelids and his cheeks and pressing into his mouth.

I have to try. I can't stand by and leave you here. I can't stand to see you in captivity. You are more of a wolf than Danarius understands and wolves need to run free. But that hadn't been a no. She wasn't going to stop, and Fenris knew terror then. Terror of what Danarius could do to her when he found out what she had been doing all this time.

Even Fenris didn't fully understand the trouble they were in.

It seemed another ordinary day. Danarius and Hawke had broken fast together, had spent the morning walking the gardens of the estate, all while Fenris walked along slightly behind then, unassuming, invisible to his master, and apparently a great distraction to Hawke, who kept reaching out and snagging fingers with his, brushing his hip if he came into reach, and sending small smiles whenever possible. Fenris struggled to believe he had grown used to her touch so quickly, a closeness and contact he had was not aware of ever having known. In only a few months a quick brush of her fingers left his skin tingling, she lingered on him like a warmth he couldn't equate to anything else.

It had been close to 10 months that Hawke had been staying here with Danarius and he could tell she was getting impatient. While he had continued trying to make her turn away, to avoid chaining herself into his captivity she had obstinately stayed, quieted his arguments with the desperate press of her lips against his own, the whispered promise that she was getting him out to come away with her. Their hungry passion for each other was fuelled even further by the secrecy they were forced to keep.

But still she had made no progress, as Fenris had not allowed himself to believe she would. His master was a more powerful man than she began to comprehend and he knew from the moment he started wishing she would stay, that she must leave him behind. Danarius was growing too attached to her, the passion she brought to everything in her life he could see captivated his master just as firmly as it had taken him in.

When Danarius coveted something, he only knew to tether it to himself, to prevent it from flitting away. That is what would crush Hawke.

Their leisurely walk took them to the rear entrance to the house, a grand summer conservatory, occupied by a couple of slaves tending to the plants while a couple more were laying out an extravagant lunch on the dining table in the centre of the room.

As she turned her eyes from the plates of food being laid out for apparently just the two of them, Danarius gestured with a rush of magic and suddenly a gaudy, gold ring appeared in his hand. He held it out with a flourish and Fenris felt his mind sluggishly refusing to comprehend what he saw.

"Catriona Amell, I would take your hand in marriage." The tone of Danarius' voice didn't suggest that the outlandish statement had been intended as a question, a foregone conclusion drawn already in his mind. Time seemed to slow as the monumental meaning of the words settled on Fenris. He closed his eyes and bit his tongue, hard, his fears for Hawke's freedom being painfully realised before him. Even before the words had left Danarius' mouth, the magister was reaching for her hand, so sure he was about to slip the ring onto her finger, another mark for another of his precious possessions.

Fenris' eyes snapped open again when he heard the sharp inhale, a rustle of movement and he saw Hawke drawing her hand out of his master's reach. "You must be joking." She spoke without thinking, and her eyes widened in surprise at her own tactlessness. Fenris tasted blood as he cringed in fear, panic threatening to take him when his mind started running through the possible retributions his master would bring down on her. Even so, he held his tongue, shamed at himself for the cowardice, the weakness trained into him that stopped him from standing up to the man.

"Excuse me?" Danarius replied, shock temporarily containing the fury that was sure to come. Hawke gaped back at him, Fenris could see her marvellous mind whirling to somehow backpedal and defuse the situation. There was still a chance that she might be able to brush her response off as a joke, another part of this long game they had been playing that she just about to leave Tevinter.

Surely that was the reason Danarius had made this offer, was it not. To make her stay, to keep her contained in his fancy cage.

What didn't help the situation was Fenris being unable to control his roiling emotions, the waves of terror and sheer helplessness rooting him to the spot and at the same time rippling down his body in a visible display of cursed blue light.

Danarius began to turn around, Fenris realising with a desperate exhale that drawing the attention of the mage would at least delay his wrath falling on Hawke, giving her more time, a chance to come up with another pretty lie that would placate Danarius for longer. Perhaps he could draw out most of his master's anger and he would be able to talk to her more calmly. It was the best chance Fenris could give her.

But in that moment Hawke began talking again.

"That's not what I want, Danarius. I didn't come here to marry, and I certainly didn't come here to marry someone like you."

"And what do you mean by that?" His voice curled dangerously across the quiet that had fallen over the scene. The wind in the garden and the bustle of slaves behind the doors seemed muted as Fenris couldn't take his eyes from Hawke.

"What I mean is that I am not some prize for you to display on your shelf, some foreign girl to take out and show off at parties. I want to be free to move on and live my life, though freedom is a luxury you don't seem to understand."

"Tell me, do you think speaking in riddles will help me understand you."

Fenris watched as she bit her lip, hoping that she would back down, before things went too far. He recognised the tight frown pulling down her brow however, and he knew she had already determined her path. He couldn't change her mind now.

"Then I'll speak plainly. You can't keep me here when I don't want to stay and I absolutely do not want to stay with you." Fenris saw as Danarius's shoulders stiffened, the only indication he could get from the man's back of how he was responding to this rare event of someone standing up to him. And in response, Hawke's face tightened sharply.

Fenris' mind raced through all the things that were about to go wrong. He wanted to stop Hawke, to just make her run and save herself. He didn't want to see Danarius turn his rapidly rising fury on her. He wished that she had never come to this place, that he could have never had the small glimpse of happiness that this past few months had brought him. He never deserved her and he was about to lose her. He didn't know whether he could return to the mindless servitude he had endured for as long as he could remember.

Danarius began to sneer, the tone of his voice causing Fenris to flinch in preparation for his wrath. "You forget your place, Lady Amell."

"I don't want a place! I don't want to be another of your possessions. Another trophy for the case. I couldn't marry a man who doesn't have a scrap of warmth in his heart. You take pleasure in belittling others, in causing pain and only cares how much people fear him! You disgust me."

"Silence, girl! I offer you the privilege of being at my side, even despite your complete lack of magic, and you turn around and insult me like this. You will not walk away from this."

Fenris saw the rage in Danarius, a sudden stiffness of his shoulders as Hawke had spoken. He realised, as he should have known all along, that his master truly did feel some affection for Riona Amell. Or as much as Fenris could imagine Danarius feeling, like the attraction of a magpie to a glittering jewel, rather than the pure love and adoration that Fenris knew Hawke deserved. The real Hawke, not the persona she had created for these marbled Tevinter halls.

Fenris could control himself no longer as he saw Hawke draw breath for another verbal assault, desperate as he was to try and get her out of harm's way. He clung desperately to the hope that maybe she would still be able to go back to the life she had before she came here.

"Hawke, stop!" He called out and Danarius took a step to the side, twisting finally so that he could see both Hawke and Fenris at once. This was when Fenris saw the twisted snarl on his master's face, the ugly wave of anger held barely at bay and Fenris knew that they had passed the point of anyone getting out of here safely. He would have frozen in deeply ingrained terror, except that small realisation gave him an unexpected sense of relief.

There was a freedom in surrendering to an inevitable fate.

Danarius' face reddened further if that was possible, his words coming from tightly clenched teeth, "Hawk! Don't think I haven't heard him calling you that. I should have seen you were lying all along. Tell me, is the Lady Amell aware you've stolen her name, flaunting it to suit your own purpose? A pity, your name was the only worthy thing about you"

Fenris was incensed. "She is worth more than you can imagine! More than you could possibly achieve."

Danarius' eyes turned towards him, and Fenris battled with the urge to turn and flee, or cower. Instead, he tried to keep his head facing up, as Hawke had shown him, to meet his master's cold, grey eyes. This fight wasn't about him. This time, he was fighting for Hawke, and that was a cause he knew he could believe in.

Danarius looked at Fenris incredulously. The raw disdain in his expression made it appear as though he were deciding the correct balance of anger and scorn to answer with, his face grimacing with a sneer.

"My little wolf grows teeth! You have become rather protective over this pretty little thing." He purred, clearly amused. "How charming."

"Fenris is ten times the man you could be." Hawke spoke up immediately, as Fenris curled back his lip, snarling. "I'd rather take a wolf than a snake!"

Danarius' fingers flexed noticeably at his side, Fenris recognised the itch of magic crackling across his skin and it struck a familiar terror through him, strangling the words in his throat before he could argue again. Some feelings just heralded danger. Some lessons were too ingrained to oppose.

"You have been tricked. Some thoughtless joke? You couldn't possibly imagine a slave was really a person." Danarius looked genuinely confounded, this was a thought beyond any kind of comprehension and it was as if he as waiting for Hawke to take it all back and accept his proposal.

"I feel the same way he does. I love him. Of course someone who couldn't understand real love would mistake it for a trick."

Fenris met her eyes at these words, sure he must have misheard her. She was staring fiercely back at him, her bright eyes shining fervently, waiting for him to look up at her, as she always did. Waiting for him to meet her gaze, to see himself as her equal. The words were beyond understanding and at the same time, they meant everything to him.

"Hawke…" He had to tell her, he felt the same way, the words were so simple and to just tell her the same-

"You have played your game, hawk but you don't understand the rules. This isn't your game anymore."

Fenris looked back to his master and his heart stopped as he saw the movement of the staff, never far from the magister's hand. He brandished it in a wide arc and the slave inside the door let out a soft gasp, fingers clutching at his throat.

Hawke let out an anguished yell, dismay hitting her as she immediately saw she could do nothing to save the hapless victim. Fenris didn't move. He knew all too well that it was already too late.

Danarius let out a vicious noise as he swept his staff across in a sharp movement, the crack of magic letting loose and in an unstoppable moment, blood flew from the poor elf's throat and his lifeless body fell with a muted thud to the floor. The blood flowed freely, rolling out towards Danarius, swishing around him in a gruesome whirlpool of vital life power, concentrating finally above him before draining down into his staff.

"Is this the freedom you wanted? Is that slave not free?" Hawke stood, one hand still slightly outreached to the limp body of the slave on the ground, the other clenched at her side. Her eyes turned from the body slowly, almost palpable fury directed back to the magister.

Fenris felt it, Hawke was radiating anger, a force that even without magic, seemed to rival the power of the magister facing opposite her. The air between them was electric, quaking where their wills met.

"You disgust me. Your answer to someone finally standing up to you is to murder an innocent, unrelated…"

"They are all the same. Like a petty child who can't see the sacrifices that must be made for the betterment of her superiors. They are here for one purpose alone. To serve me. They would not have a purpose if not for what I give them."

"You think you're helping them? You're more deluded than I thought. This is between you and me, Danarius. Leave them out of this."

"You brought them into this, girl. My slaves give their lives to my service. And I will use that," He reached out again, another elven slave within the conservatory fell to her knees, fingers sputtering uselessly over the gaping wound in her throat, "to teach you some respect."

"Stop!" Hawke cried out, Fenris remained with his hands at his sides, terrified, with his eyes uselessly fixed on the serving girl. The tray she had been carrying rolled across the floor, contents flowing and mingling across the marble while her blood, once freed of its host, followed the previous lifestream to Danarius' staff. The tip glowed as it absorbed the thick, red liquid.

"You lie to my face, aim to humiliate me in my own courts, try to turn my little wolf against me and expect to get away with it. You will learn what it means to try to outwit a magister."

"No!" Fenris couldn't hold his tongue, stepping forward again, the marks already flickering in anguish across his skin flaring in intensity and a hand reached out towards the man now brandishing his staff.

Then he saw the slightest movement of Danarius' eyes, and his body stiffened, no longer following his command to move forward, despite his most strenuous attempts. He was instead suddenly imprisoned, helpless and hopeless, inside his own glowing skin. Caught in the act of turning on his master.

He felt his knees buckle, he dropped to the ground and was looking up at Hawke. He was going to die and he selfishly wanted to look on her face in his final moments, wishing that instead of white faced terror, he saw the bright, easy smile that he had cherished over the last few months.

She had not changed position, he wondered whether that was also Danarius's doing, until she stepped forwards once more, this time turning towards him.

"Please, no! Let him go!" Her voice was rough, pleading, desperate.

"To think I believed I had feelings for a Free Marcher brat. Someone so deplorable you would steal another's name and fall for a pathetic slave such as this." He snarled.

"Danarius, don't hurt him! Do what you want with me." Hawke stepped tentatively forwards again, hands stretching slightly forward, as if offering herself.

"It is far too late for that. Even with whatever you really are, street rat or noble as you claim, you two are from very different worlds." Danarius was manic, Fenris had never seen him this angry and in this state even he couldn't fathom what the magister's next move would be. "As different as night and day. You believe you could belong with him. Selfish, ridiculous girl, you came to me. You cannot turn me aside so easily."

"Danarius…" Her eyes were fixed on Fenris who was still frozen, though he could feel himself breathing heavily, enough movement left in his body to tremble under the force of his master's magic.

"You cannot dare treat me like this. I thought you better than that, Amell. Hawk. Whatever you really are!"

She ran to stand in front of Fenris, falling to the ground to throw her arms around him, as if to protect him from the power Danarius had been charging into his staff.

Danarius stared at them for a moment, anger clear in his eyes but something else lurking in his expression.

"You truly believe you care for him, don't you?"

"I do." She said simply, Fenris could hear the tremble in her voice, the weakness she knew was a mistake to reveal. But in this position he could do nothing to warn her to leave him, save herself.

"You would do anything for him?" The man sneered, his voice giving way to a manic peal of laughter.

"Yes. Please Danarius." She was crying, he heard it now.

"Then you are no better than he is. You wish to align yourself with him, then you deserve the same treatment. I'll make sure you can't trick anyone else again, playing games with their heads. Everyone will see you for what you really are. A liar, a wicked temptress. You, hawk, can never have what you want."

He reached out then, his staff brandished before them. Fenris felt Hawke cringe above him, trying to throw her weight around him further, to protect him of all things.

Then the familiar trickle of magic ran through him, spreading all through his body like an unstoppable sickness, drowning his senses. He prepared for the onset of pain, the wrath that Danarius had finally brought down on them.

But it was Hawke who cried out.

Her arms stiffened around him, clenched as if frozen in place. She let out a noise that sounded animalistic, a shriek of pain, terror, anguish, he couldn't place. Fenris was released from whatever curse had been holding him in place, at the same time as Hawke flew backwards, landing heavily, dragged partway back towards Danarius.

Fenris wrenched forward after her, taking her hand, still outstretched in his direction. She gripped him in return, a tight claw grasping blindly around his hand and he felt his bones protesting under the unyielding grip, almost enough to draw a gasp from him, had he not learnt to withhold signs of his suffering.

"Stop!" Fenris cried, the sight of her features twisting in agony held his eyes as firmly as any spell Danarius could have cast on him. "Don't toy with her! Just kill us like you plan to!" He raised his voice to be heard over the sound of Hawke wailing on the ground. He wanted anything to end this suffering for her. Even the release of death. Perhaps Danarius wanted him to beg for it, after his display of 'releasing' the slaves.

Even as he tried to form the words, ready to prostrate himself at his master's feet, he felt something change. Around his fingers Hawke's hands, her very bones, began to shift. Her vice-like grip on his loosened and he pulled back, keeping a light touch on her skin and at the same time repulsed by whatever torture his master was inflicting upon her.

"Please! Stop this!" He recognised the reversal in their roles, pleading Danarius to stop hurting Hawke, despite the fact I t had made no difference on the magister's verdict before, Fenris was still willing to try. Anything. "Danarius! Master?"

Only at the last word did Danarius even react as if he noticed Fenris was there. The manic smile he had sported as he savoured whatever he was doing to Hawke shifted and he raised his eyebrow to look at Fenris for the first time.

"You have shown you have no loyalty to me, slave. She has ruined my little wolf and for that you will both regret the day you tried to defy me." He twisted his staff and Hawke gave out one last, desperate shriek, curling into a tight ball as if trying to hold her body together.

In a movement that was too quick for the eye to follow, it seemed as if her body continued collapsing inwards on itself, her form crumpling before him, into nothingness. Grey smoke licked and curled around her and although he couldn't draw his eyes away she was obscured from his sight.

Before he could shout out, or even process what had happened, something burst from the centre of the fog, shooting straight into the air. Fenris followed the movement upwards and his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the sky.

All he saw, circling the garden at a low height and screeching out its long, strident call, was a hawk.

Fenris frowned against the sun, blinking. He glanced down at what was now simply a pile of clothes at his master's feet, then finally his stunned expression rose up to his master's face.

"What…?" He couldn't comprehend what he had just seen, the bird still circling in his gaze behind Danarius' head.

"I told you, your precious Hawke would not be playing her tricks any longer. She was so bold to spurn my affections, everything I could have given her. Instead she thought to choose you, a slave, a stain on my estate, a nothing. The sheer insolence. But now, no one will have her, least of all you. You will never look upon your beloved's face again." He had that same eerie grin on his face, like a madman. Fenris should have feared what might happen next but there was one thought that circled through his head with the lazy loops of the bird above them.

"She is alive." Fenris could not focus on much beyond that simple fact. It had seemed that this was the end but now, as long as a heart beat in her chest, there was surely hope.

"Alive, yes. As are you. I'm going to make you wish I had given you the sweet release of death." Fenris frowned up at the magister, speechless, their eyes fixed on each other. He was wary, waiting, but Danarius did not make any move towards him. There was not death in his eyes, or anger. Instead, something far more terrifying—hunger, some amused glint that was a joke Fenris didn't want to know the punchline to.

"Now run, take your Hawke, or what you can catch of her." Danarius grinned darkly. "Happy hunting, wolf."

Fenris did not question and he did not look back.

Whoops, i went away and forgot to update this. I was meant to be on schedule this time. Anyway, thanks for reading!