Varric

We entered the mansion and were greeted with the smell of smoke. I glanced over at Isabela and Anders. "I'm thinking that it didn't go quite like Broody expected it to."

"We can only hope." Anders said looking a bit too joyful.

"Shouldn't he have realized someone was in the house by now? Normally I don't get two steps inside before he's here." Isabela pointed out. "Should we be worried?"

"Broody can handle himself. Not so sure he could handle Hawke, though." I said as we entered the main hall. Hawke was laying face down on the ground. It looked as if she had fallen over in mid run. Fenris was sitting at the table. His head resting on it. There was an empty plate that I knew had a batch of cookies on it yesterday.

"Isn't she adorable! The little angel must have worn them both out." Isabela laughed and moved to crouch next to Abby.

"No, you can't climb on the…" Fenris jerked awake. He saw us and rubbed his face wearily. "Sorry." He mumbled. We all three burst out laughing. He frowned at us confused. "What?" He asked.

"How hard can it be, he says. I told you that was famous last words!" I laughed.

"What?" Fenris said frowning more.

"You…have something…in your…hair." Anders choked out between fits of laughter. Fenris reached up and started as he realized he had two pigtails with big sloppily tied bows in them. One was high on the back of his head, the other low and off to one side.

"Purple is so your color." Isabela laughed.

"Shush! Don't wake her up!" He protested as he hastily ripped the bows from his hair.

"Have a bit of trouble with the little angel?" Isabela asked climbing up on the table by him.

"She is still the Abby we all know. Girl could find trouble locked in solitary confinement."

"Smells like you had a bit of a problem with a fire." I said moving to sit across from him.

"More like two." He sighed and rubbed his face. He looked exhausted.

"You had two fires?" I asked.

"She set a rug on fire in the library after she discovered that the suit of armor was actually a dead body. In her haste she managed to knock over the bookshelves and knock herself out." He sighed. "She also has a burn on her hand. I gave her a potion and it helped with the pain." He said as Anders drew a sharp breath. "Trust me, as much as she ran around after, she's fine."

"So the other fire?" I pressed. This was going in my story later. I would need to embellish it a bit. Maybe he saved her from a roaring fire caused by the templar henchmen.

"Well, I was trying to fix her something to eat when she started screaming. As soon as I got out the fire and tended her…well, the kitchen might have been on fire." He sighed. "I decided that giving her the cookies would be the quickest thing to feed her and get her in bed. She had already managed to break several things, fall down the stairs, and attempted to fight with a suit of armor. The armor won by the way. I'll have to tease her about that someday." He shook his head.

"You thought giving a small child cookies before bed was a good idea?" Isabela asked with a laugh.

"Well, at the time, yes. I have since learned the error of my ways." He glanced over at Abby and sighed. "She refused to go to bed. Insisted on three stories, but she still wouldn't stay in bed. She started talking really fast and running around. I decided it was safer to keep her in this room. I thought she would run herself out. And she did. Eventually. Not before breaking everything that was breakable in the room. And scaling the bookshelves as if it was a mountain. She then leapt off of them. Leapt expecting me to catch her. I managed to catch her before she got to the rope for the chandelier. Barely."

"And you thought it would be easy." Anders laughed. "So are you ready to admit defeat and let us take her?"

"I am not admitting defeat. But I will move us to the Amell estate if you can't get anything out of the mage." He said. "How did they do it?"

"Who and do what?" I asked puzzled.

"Her parents. How did they manage her? And why in the name of all that is good in the world would they think to have another after her, let alone two more?" He asked shaking his head. "She is more than enough trouble. It is little wonder her mother was always angry with her. She had to deal with her all day long."

I widened my eyes and motioned for him to quit, but it was too late. Abby had woken up at some point and stared at him with wide eyes. "They did leave me cause I was bad. And you think so too." She said her lip trembling.

"Abby…" Fenris started and stood quickly. She bolted. "Abby, wait!" Fenris yelled. Abby ran towards the door, all of us taking off after her. Merrill and Aveline chose that moment to enter the house.

"What's going…Hawke, come back!" Aveline shouted as Abby dodged between them and out the door.

"What happened?" Aveline asked looking at us.

"I have to catch her." Fenris said and used his powers to move quickly past them.

"Should we go after them?" Merrill asked.

"Where would she go?" Anders asked worriedly. "She doesn't remember Kirkwall. We have to find her before the templars do."

Fenris reappeared and looked bewildered. "She used her rogue talents and vanished. What are we going to do?"

"She can't go far. We'll find her. I'll get the guards to start quietly looking. The rest of you split up. Someone stay here incase she comes back. Varric, go and get Bandit. He can find her probably better than any of us. Fenris, which way did she take off to?"

"I don't know. She darted into a crowd and then was just gone. She showed me how she could hide in the shadows yesterday. I can't just sit here." He said and started out the door.

"You need to stay here. You know this house best. Maybe she's hiding here. Or she might come back. She trust you most right now." Aveline said putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"She doesn't trust me right now." He said miserably.

"I'll stay with him. She likes the gardens. Always has. Even as an adult. Maybe she went there. Check the Chantry ones as well." Merrill suggested. "Fenris can make sweeps around his house. Maybe she went into one of the alleys here." He nodded and took off.

We each split up, hurrying to hunt the small girl. Aveline went to round up the guards. Anders went to the market area. Isabela went to search the Chantry area. And I went to get Bandit. I wasn't a man prone to praying but I prayed to the Stone, the Ancestors, the Creators, and the Maker just to cover all the bases. We had to find her before something happened to her.