Nightmares Should Really Stay in the Fade Re-write

Chapter 6

"Ah, well we cannot have that, now, can we, my pet?" Danarius asked in a rhetorically mocking tone.

The magister pushed Fenris all the way to the floor, which would have been much more difficult if the elf had not been bound with heavy chains behind his back. Annabelle sobbed as Danarius unstrapped the elf's metal chestplate and the back of his leather armor shirt. It was disturbing that even though Hawke had trouble helping Fenris put on the armor earlier that day, Danarius, after all the years his "pet" had been on the run, could easily find and unbuckle all the straps.

Fenris turned his head slightly to face Hawke, but could not find words to console her. He hoped she'd close her eyes and put her mind somewhere far away, somewhere where she could not hear the screams that were to come.

Hadriana returned, a large horsewhip in her hand, and the older magister called for the guard who'd followed them below deck.

"Thirty lashes, no hesitation. I will examine him later to see that you've done what I command. Falter and you will share my pet's fate." Danarius said, as Hadriana handed the helmed guard the whip.

The soldier nodded. "Yes ser. Thirty lashes."

"And then you will put him in the cell with the girl."

"Of course, master." the guard said. Then the two magisters were gone and the guard stretched his right arm, which appeared stiff. He must not have been in the initial fight to capture them, then. Guards all looked the same to Annabelle. Well, except Aveline. She wished she was back at the Hanged Man with all her friends, she missed seeing Fenris content, and surrounded by people who (mostly) cared about him.

Fenris took a deep breath, anticipating the first blow, but it didn't come as soon as he'd expected it.

"Please, don't do this." The guard turned his head to face Annabelle, who addressed him softly, her shiny blue eyes pleading. The guard shook his head.

"Look, if I don't do it, I'll be punished, same as him, and my family will starve. Master Danarius will inspect him, like he said he would, and if Master's not satisfied, I'll pay for it in blood. I'm sorry, I have no other option." The guard sounded rusty in the common tongue, but Annabelle could understand him fairly well, and she definitely could read the sympathy and helplessness in his voice.

She wanted to nod, to say she understood, but she just shook her head and bit back tears, because Fenris' emerald eyes met hers, and she couldn't look away.

"I'm sorry." She was apologizing both to the guard, whom she pitied, despite what he was about to do, because he obviously didn't want to do it, and to Fenris. Fenris closed his eyes.

"Not as sorry as I am." the guard replied.

"Just get it done. I don't need your sorrow, fool. We all do what we must. Hawke, close your eyes, put your mind anywhere but here. I don't want you to see this." Fenris instructed, his voice changing from bitter to soft and melancholy as he addressed Hawke.

The guard nodded and raised the whip. He brought it down on Fenris' back quickly. Fenris grunted throughout the first five or six blows, but it was after the tenth that his screams echoed so loudly below deck that Hawke had to open her eyes. Fenris was bleeding, the bandages from the dragon's attack no longer intact. Annabelle gasped as the guard cracked the fifteenth blow, and then the sixteenth. Fenris cried out, his facial features pained greatly, his angular jaw clenched tightly and his eyes shut. His face was very, very red. His shoulders were braced, entire body struggling against the chains.

The guard also closed his eyes at the twenty-fifth blow. The last five blows were much less severe as the guard grew tired, but he went all the way to thrity.

When he stopped, he unlocked the cell door and pulled Fenris up by an arm. The elf was hanging onto consciousness by a thread. Hawke looked up at the guard with sad, pleading eyes. the man supported Fenris' weight as the elf got as close as he could to Annabelle before he collapsed in her lap, face down.

Hawke leaned forward, frustrated that her hands were still in chains and she sobbed over his torn flesh and weary, injured body.

"Don't weep for me, Hawke, I'm not yet dead." Fenris sounded calm, but his breaths were short, shallow and ragged.

"I swear, Fenris, I'll kill that bastard." Hawke said, after she regained enough composure to say something coherent. She meant it, she wanted her swords so she could at least have a fighting chance against the evil mage, but she couldn't even move, with the combination of the chains and Fenris laying on top of her.

"Gonna pretend I didn't hear that." the guard said as he closed the cell door. "I'm supposed to let the Master know if you two make plans. But…I think I'll let that one slide."

"That was no plan." Hawke said, speaking more clearly than she had since she'd been put in the cell. "That was a promise."

A/N: Sorry for such a long wait. I feel kinda awful that I made a small reference to Monty Python in a very serious moment. YOLO.