Chapter Forty: World's Worst Sister

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age 2.

"Hey, where's Carver anyway?" Emma inquired. "He didn't remind me about that meeting we're supposed to go to with the mages and I almost forgot about it."

"You did forget about it," Merrill told her. "That was last night."

Emma twitched. "Then why didn't you remind me? We cohabitate!"

Merrill shrugged. "I thought that Carver was going to."

"Since the meeting was last night, why are we checking it out now?" Varric wondered.

"Well, there might be some evidence or still some stragglers here and there," Emma pointed out. "And maybe I'll feel less like I just blew this off if I still came at some point even if it was hours after I was actually supposed to be here."

They saw a mage and a templar standing in the building and calmly chatting.

"Templars are involved?" Emma asked, surprised.

"Unless this templar is just exceptionally stupid and doesn't realize that someone dressed in mage get-up is, in fact, a mage," Fenris suggested.

Emma shrugged. "There's actually a good case for either, I think."

"See! I told you that she was after us!" the mage cried out.

"After you?" Emma asked, confused. "Look, I was just told to go check out your party. I really have no idea what's going on."

The templar looked terribly upset. "No, not her. I can't do this. I'm sorry." He ran off.

"I've never seen a templar refuse to attack me before," Emma said, surprised. "Huh."

"What about Carver?" Varric asked.

Emma rolled her eyes. "Please. He's barely a templar. And you all are less templar-ly than he is."

They quickly dispatched with the fools that attacked them (there was more than just the one hiding, mages and templars both, but they really weren't anything compared to the Arishok that she hadn't actually fought) and then Emma went in search of this very strange templar.

He was waiting for them, quite patiently, right outside.

"I told them not to do it. I don't hold with kidnapping and if I had known just who it was…" the templar shook his head. "I would have warned you both, I swear!"

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" Emma asked him.

The templar shook his head. "No, you don't. But I know that you're Emma Hawke which means that the brother they kidnapped is Carver."

"Is he…a friend of yours?" Emma asked delicately, having difficulty imagining Carver actually possessing friends.

The templar nodded. "Yes. My name is Keran and Carver is a very good friend. We actually met before he joined the templars, six years ago when he rescued me from a blood magic cult."

"I don't remember this," Emma said, frowning.

"You refused to help because it involved aiding a templar," Varric reminded her.

"I still don't remember but that does sound like me," Emma agreed. "So that's where Carver's gotten off to! I suppose that I can't really blame him for failing to remind me even if he really shouldn't have let himself get kidnapped."

"You could show a little more concern," Keran said reprovingly.

Emma waved him off. "I'm plenty concerned. Now tell me, who kidnapped my brother and why? And where is he?"

"They took him to our base on the Wounded Coast. They said that we needed a hostage as leverage but I know that, with a brother like yours, you've got to be reasonable," Keran told her, valiantly ignoring the way that everyone in the party except for Anders and Emma started laughing at that.

"But…why? What's going on?" Emma demanded.

"They want you to see how dangerous Meredith is, how keeping her in charge will only lead to open war on the mages," Keran explained.

Emma was very, very quiet.

"…Champion?" Keran asked finally, uncertainly.

Emma held up one finger. "I need a minute."

It took another five before Emma nodded shakily.

"Can I talk now?" Keran asked.

Emma ignored that. "I hate Meredith. I hate her a lot. You didn't need to do anything to convince me and if you did this wouldn't really have helped your case."

Keran's eyes widened. "Really? You support mages?"

Emma pointed to herself. "Mage. My sister is a mage. My fiancé is a mage. My sister-in-law is a mage." She pointed to Anders and Merrill in their turn. "I've publicly supported mages. I'm involved with at least half of the things that the mage underground gets up to. I was there for Alrik's death! I still send angry letters to the Chantry for taking my sister away! The real question is why anyone thought that I was supporting Meredith in the first place."

Keran looked sheepish. "All I know is that Meredith seems pretty sure that you're on her side."

"And, as we can all agree, Meredith is pretty crazy. Why should you listen to her rantings about me instead of all the evidence to the contrary?" Emma demanded.

Keran fidgeted. "You'll have to take it up with Trask."

"Is he sleeping?" Fenris wondered, peering closely at Carver who lay not far away on the ground. "He's breathing and he's not bleeding."

"He better not be," Emma said dangerously. "Not after all the wandering I've had to do to get here."

Thrask sighed as he stepped towards them. "I guess it was too much to hope that you wouldn't have come here."

"Says the kidnapper," Emma snapped.

"Hey, remember that time you blackmailed me over the fact that my dead daughter had been an apostate?" Thrask returned.

Emma blinked. "Honestly, no. I did that?"

"You did that," Aveline confirmed. "And right in front of me, too."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Please. Like that matters."

"I must confess that, despite the fact that you're terrible, you're also pretty rabidly pro-mage. Why would you side with Meredith now?" Thrask asked, genuinely puzzled.

"I'm not on Meredith's side. Yes, I regularly talk to her but since I hate her so much – even though I do find her strangely compelling – I really can't pass up the opportunity to harass her on a regular basis. Where in the world is everyone getting this weird 'Emma is pro-Meredith' thing from anyway?"

Thrask opened his mouth.

"And if you tell me that it's because Meredith told you that I'm on her side then I'm going to hit you. As we can all agree, Meredith is pretty crazy. Why should you listen to her rantings about me instead of all the evidence to the contrary?" Emma demanded.

"You're not on Meredith's side?" Thrask was delighted. "Wonderful! I wish you would have just told us that in the first place so we didn't have to resort to this silly kidnapping mix-up."

"I would have had you asked or had I known that you thought that I was on Meredith's side," Emma replied. "Seriously, do I need to make an announcement or something? Oh, wait, I already did. I've made several announcements and it's not seeming to do me any good."

"Release Carver Hawke," Thrask ordered.

"No!" a crazed-looking woman hissed. "The templar dies. Then the Champion!"

"Stand down, Grace," Thrask ordered.

Not one to take chances where the lives of her family was at stake (at least if she weren't getting something out of it), Emma mostly immobilized her.

"Okay, who are you and why do you want to kill me?" she demanded.

"I am Grace," Grace introduced herself. "Several years ago I had escaped from the Starkhaven Circle and you let me go."

"…Am I supposed to apologize for this?" Emma wondered. "Is this supposed to be a problem or something?"

"I got caught again!" Grace complained.

"And that sucks," Emma said sympathetically. "But how is that my fault? At all? Even in crazy blood mage land?"

"I think that you underestimate crazy blood mages and the depths to which their insanity can sink," Anders opined.

"If you hadn't let me go then I wouldn't have been caught then!" Grace cried out.

Emma stared at her, brows furrowed. "Yeah. Because you would have been caught the day that I first met you. Moron."

Grace valiantly attempted to move. "I'm not a moron!"

"Yeah, you are, and now you're boring me," Emma said, yawning. "Right, Thrask, you were on freeing Carver, I believe?"

Thrask started. "Right."

A couple of the mages looked like they wanted to stop him but with Grace immobilized, they didn't dare.

One of the mages cut himself and blood magic flowed over Carver.

Emma tensed. "What are you doing?"

"Grace used blood magic to hold him," Thrask explained.

"Why would you let them use blood magic on him?" Emma demanded.

Thrask shrugged. "I'm trying to be more open-minded."

"Not about blood magic, you shouldn't be!" Emma exclaimed.

"Most of my supporters are blood mages," Thrask said pointedly.

Emma shook her head in annoyance. "Bloody politics…"

Carver coughed a little as he sat up. "It's about time you got here."

Emma's jaw dropped. "R-really? You get kidnapped by crazy blood mages and their templar allies and that's all you have to say?"

Carver shrugged. "Well, it was kind of annoying and won't really motivate me to go in to work more often but I knew you'd take care of it. I also figured it was something to do with you but I'm choosing to be generous and not blame you. Even though I totally could and could probably make a pretty good case for it."

Emma snorted. "How sweet."

Carver stretched and stood up. "Well, now that that's over with, what's going to happen to these people?"

"I recommend that you get out of here," Emma advised. "Either leave Kirkwall or get back to the Gallows or whatever before the templars come."

Thrask nodded. "I will, Champion. And I am sorry about the inconvenience even if you do probably deserve it." He glanced at Grace. "But, um, what about her?"

Emma blinked. "What? Oh, right." She took out a dagger and slit the girl's throat.

There were a few dismayed exclamations.

"What was that?" Thrask demanded.

Emma shrugged. "She had the crazy eyes and was blaming me for doing her a favor. I don't trust her and, well, she helped kidnap my brother. Let's hope that I continue to work under the assumption that this was all her fault, shall we?"

Thrask looked a little nervous. "Right, such a terrible thing for her to have pulled off all by herself…"

"Emma, what do you say we go to the Hanged Man right now?" Fenris asked, pulling her aside.

"I love the Hanged Man," Emma announced. "I'd say that's a wonderful idea. But you really don't like it there all that much and you normally disapprove of going during the day. What's going on?"

"It turns out, I really do have a sister and I'll spare you the details of how I verified the story and contacted her but she's here now and she said that she'll be in the tavern during the day every day for a week," Fenris explained. "I would have asked her to stay with me but we've never met, at least that I can remember, and so it might be awkward. Besides, this could all be a trap anyway and I don't want to deal with a home invasion."

Emma was unimpressed. "Seriously, she comes all the way from Tevinter to Kirkwall and she's just going to hang out in a tavern all day? Lame."

"She didn't come here for that," Fenris growled. "She came here for me."

Emma coughed. "Oh, right. Well, feel free to go. You don't need my permission to have your little family reunion."

"And I wasn't asking for it," Fenris replied. "I just would like you and the rest of our heavily armed friends to come with me since it's probably a trap."

"Sounds good," Emma agreed.

"Oh, but in case it's not then please don't ruin this for me," Fenris requested.

Emma looked almost hurt. "What makes you think that I would want to ruin your family reunion?"

"Well…you keep refusing to have one with Bethany," Fenris pointed out.

Emma sighed. "Fenris that…that has nothing to do with…"

"Then what does it have to do with?" Fenris demanded.

Emma looked uncertain. "I…Everyone goes around doing pretty much whatever they want and no one catches them using magic. And yet somehow, they caught Bethany."

"Varric bribes people not to notice the mages that aren't you and he was on the expedition," Fenris replied.

"He's not so careless as to let him being out of town ruin what he's trying to protect," Emma said stubbornly. "And yet Bethany came to their attention when Anders didn't and he was openly running a clinic. And yet she wouldn't let me kill those templars – it wasn't even all that many! – and she let them take her away. And Carver and Mother say she seems happy there. I really have to wonder how much of this is a problem for her and that's why…Well."

Fenris nodded. "I quite understand."

Bolstered, Emma led the way to the Hanged Man.

"How are you supposed to know who she is if you don't remember her?" Merrill asked innocently.

"Maybe she'll be the only young elven woman here," Isabela suggested.

Fortunately, a red-headed elf quickly made things easy for them. "It really is you, Leto."

"Varania. Leto?" Fenris repeated, confused.

"Yes, Leto," Varania said. "That is your name. Or it was before you lost your memory in that damned ritual."

"You learn something new every day," Varric mused. "I'm not sure I'll ever be able to call you that, though. We've known each other for six years."

"I'm not sure I'll ever call myself that, either," Fenris agreed. "I…I think I remember you, Varania."

"Don't you just love that convenient amnesia that goes away the second you lay eyes on someone you once knew?" Carver asked sarcastically.

"Actually, yes, I think that that would be very convenient amnesia indeed," Emma replied. "Not as convenient as not ever having amnesia but, well, what can you do?"

"I'm sorry," Varania said, looking down.

"Why…?" Fenris asked uncertainly. His eyes hardened. "If you brought Danarius here then no amount of 'sorry's will never make up for that and I'm probably going to kill you."

"Ah, my little Fenris, predictable as always," a smug man in mage robes said with a smirk as he descended the stairs to meet them. He was followed by several faceless guards.

Fenris froze completely at the sight of him and Emma considered it her duty to break the ice.

"Is that Danarius?" she asked, unimpressed. "I could totally kill him."

"You're a confident one, aren't you?" Danarius asked, amused. "You shouldn't blame your sister, Fenris. She did what any good Imperium citizen should do."

"Totally sell out her family?" Emma asked, outraged. "Man, Tevinter fails, mage paradise or not."

"I never wanted these filthy markings, Danarius, but I won't let you kill me to get them," Fenris snarled.

"Actually, you competed with hundreds of others for the privilege of getting them," Danarius contradicted.

"Lies!" Fenris cried out. "Why would I do that?"

Danarius waved his hand. "Something about the freedom of your mother and sister. I don't really remember; it was such a small thing to me. So this is your new master, then? The Champion of Kirkwall? Impressive."

"Is that really how you see the world?" Emma asked, surprised. "In terms of 'oh, this person must belong to this person'? Because that's not really how we roll in Kirkwall, let alone my beloved Ferelden."

"I'll give you a lot of money for him," Danarius offered.

Fenris stopped and looked curiously at Emma. "You really like money and we're not particularly close. Are you interested in his offer? Because when he says a lot, he means a lot."

"Maybe you shouldn't encourage her," Varric suggested.

"I think you should do it," Anders spoke up. "He hates mages and thinks we all should be locked up so why not send him back to slavery?"

Carver rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Anders! You know that this undercuts your whole 'mages are like slave' thing, right, if you want to send a slave back?"

"I don't think that it undercuts it at all," Anders said stubbornly.

"Well, I do," Emma told him. "Anders, stop taking your opinions from Justice. Justice, try to remember that you want to be justice and not vengeance and there is nothing just about slavery. That's why we compare the plight of the mages to it, remember?"

Anders sighed. "I'm clearly outvoted here."

"Honestly, Cassandra, I couldn't believe it either," Varric announced. "I mean, it was kind of blatant hypocrisy but, well, this was pretty near the end."

Danarius frowned. "Who's Cassandra? And the end of what?"

"And Fenris, as for us 'not being close'? Please. It's been six years. We're family at this point. Except for Sebastian, of course. So no, Danarius, we're not going to sell Fenris to you. And now we're going to kill you," Emma declared boldly.

"Oh, are you?" Danarius was coldly amused…or at least he was for the next ten minutes until they'd managed to kill him and all of his guards.

Fenris looked grimly satisfied. "I have wanted to crush his heart ever since I first discovered that I had the power to crush hearts."

"I am all for achieving life dreams as long as they don't involve oppressing mages," Emma announced, giving him a thumbs up.

"I just wish he would have begged for mercy, first," Aveline said. "That would have been fitting, I think."

"We can't have everything," Merrill said wistfully.

Varania's eyes were huge and she slowly backed away. "Somehow this is not how I thought that this would go…"

Varric snorted. "Clearly."

"I didn't have a choice!" she claimed.

"That is such bull!" Carver said angrily. "You could have chosen to not tell him about Fenris and where he was and then lure Fenris into this trap. Even if he gave you a good incentive for betraying your own brother, that's still a choice! Even if he would have killed you, guess, what, that's a choice!"

"You don't understand!" Varania cried out. "Freedom…what you've been chasing for so long…it's not all it's cracked up to be. No one wants to give work to an ex-slave girl! We were barely surviving. You have no idea what I've had to do since Mother died."

"It might have helped if you'd moved and not mentioned the slave part," Aveline suggested helpfully.

"I've spent enough years in slavery to know that that's not true," Fenris told her harshly. "You wouldn't believe the things I had to do for Danarius. And things aren't perfect now but they're better. If you truly think life as a slave is better than you're either an idiot or you had a far different experience than I did. Maybe both. Don't you dare resent me for the gift that I lost everything to give you! Send yourself back into slavery for all I care if you're so nostalgic!"

"I…" Varania trailed off and then took a deep breath. "And I couldn't even leave Tevinter or I'd be snapped up and sent to one of your barbaric Circles. Danarius promised to make me his apprentice! I was just trying to better my life!"

"You sold out your own brother for the chance to become a magister?" Fenris cried out indignantly.

"You gave up everything, your own identity, once before to see us taken care of. Can you blame me for trying to see that through?" Varania asked, her voice cracking.

"Yes, yes I can," Fenris said coldly. "I sacrificed everything for you once and made my own life into a living hell. That doesn't give you the right to ask that of me again. And you didn't even ask! You would have been the new Hadriana and when Danarius took me back you would have been a princess in a house that enslaved your brother! You disgust me."

"Your sister's a mage? You bloody hypocrite! You really are just jealous!" Anders exclaimed triumphantly.

Carver held up a hand. "Okay, can we pause this sibling drama for a moment? I need to yell at Anders again."

Fenris considered. "I can wait."

"Anders, do you remember how Fenris has no memory?" Carver began. "How he just learned that his birth name was Leto when he met Varania? How he didn't even know that she existed until three years ago? How he didn't like mages when we first met him? Logically, how can his dislike of mages spring from any jealousy if he didn't like them before he even knew about her?"

"Maybe it was subconscious," Anders suggested.

Carver rolled his eyes. "And furthermore, do you remember how he was enslaved and abused by mages? Sort of like…" Carver practically choked on the words. "Sort of like you say mages are abused and enslaved by templars and that gives you the right to hate them? Do you think that maybe, even if there was an element of jealousy involved, he has a far more compelling reason to hate mages than that?"

"But…they're mages," Anders protested. "I don't understand how anyone can hate mages."

Carver sighed. "Of course you don't." He nodded to Fenris. "You may proceed."

"Thank you," Fenris said before advancing on his sister, his hand held out and glowing menacingly.

"Help!" Varania cried out. "Don't let him do this!"

"You've really got to love the apathetic Hanged Man clientele," Isabela said, looking over at the other patrons who were steadfastly ignoring them and continuing on with their business. "Maker knows that if I didn't know you people I'd be right there with them."

"Fenris…stop," Emma pleaded.

"Why should I?" Fenris demanded. "She was ready to see me killed!"

"Enslaved, not killed," Aveline corrected. "Not that that's any better."

"Because, like it or not, she's your sister and you can't just kill your family," Emma said firmly. "That's what separates us from people like her."

Fenris closed his eyes briefly. "Get out."

Varania didn't need to be told twice.

"Since we're here," Fenris said, storming up to the bar and taking a seat. "Keep them coming."

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