Promises: Chapter Three

Disclaimer: Dragon Age and all assorted characters/places/etc belong to Bioware, not me.

Fenris started to notice differences in their surroundings after about a week and a half of traveling. The space between farms shrunk while the amount of cultivated land grew. Villages appeared more often and were larger too. He reached the conclusion that they had left the borderlands that didn't really belong to any country behind. "Hmm…it appears that we've now crossed into Antiva proper," he remarked in passing. That was all the invitation Hawke needed to start babbling on a new subject.

"Oh! Are we?" she said brightly. "I haven't ever been to Antiva, you know. Actually I've never been outside of Ferelden…well, not till the slavers caught me but that doesn't really count. I mean, it wasn't as though I got to see anything or even know where I was at. So I guess there's a chance I was here before and I didn't know it, but that's hardly the point.

Fenris resisted the urge to ask if the mageling ever had a point.

"I saw an Antivan ship once, though. In the harbor at Denerim. It looked different from Ferelden ships, all graceful and airy. I wonder if traveling by a ship like that wouldn't be bad. Boats aren't my thing, you know. I got dreadfully sick the one time my family had to take one. But to ride on something that is really a ship and not just a glorified washtub…it would have to be better, I think. Don't you?"

Before Fenris could even draw breath to answer, the mageling did so for him. "Oh! What am I thinking? Being on a ship in the middle of the ocean surrounded by fish—of course you would hate that. Nothing could make that better for you. Stupid question, sorry I asked. I can think of something better. Let me see…have you ever been to Antiva?"

"No," he replied shortly.

"Oh?" Hawke looked hopefully at him. Fenris repressed a sigh and decided to indulge the mageling's curiosity for once.

"My former master did not often leave his seat of power," the elf explained. "He only ventured out for great reward or when it was required of him. He especially would not ever visit Antiva for fear that one of his many enemies would offer a large enough bounty to tempt a master assassin to try their luck killing him."

"Is that so? He must be a real coward," she noted.

"Indeed," Fenris said and fell silent again. Hawke took up the reins of the conversation without any prodding. He let her chatter on. Fenris had once taken her to task for never giving him a moment of silence. The mageling had bit her tongue and looked away before confessing it unsettled her when it was quiet. She wasn't used to it, coming from a rambunctious family like she did. The broken look on her face made Fenris feel like a monster. He never raised the subject again. It was easy enough for him to tune her out, particularly as she usually didn't insist on he participate, and he preferred to be around a happy Hawke.

He couldn't help but speak up once more, however, after Hawke went on and on about how Antiva might be like. "This may be my first time in Antiva," he said, interrupting a rather fanciful spiel of hers, "but I have heard of it from other slaves who had been stolen away from their homes here."

"So what did they say?" Hawke asked.

"They missed their home a lot," Fenris replied. "So much that I wondered whether their descriptions of Antiva were colored by that feeling."

"Meaning they sounded too good to be true?"

"Exactly. They spoke of vibrant canals and towering spires. I was told more than once that the Imperium seemed downright dowdy and dreary compared to the lush beauty of Antiva." Fenris shrugged his shoulders. "But I suppose Antiva has one clear advantage over Tevinter, and that is the fact that it is not ruled by magisters."

"Sometimes I get the feeling that you are not very fond of your homeland," the mageling remarked quietly.

"I don't like what it is," was Fenris' reply. "Besides your descriptions of Ferelden are none too appealing. You say it's cold and muddy and smells of wet dog," he pointed out.

"It is cold and muddy and all of that. But I miss it still." A sad smile crossed her face. "My wet dog most of all."

"You had a mabari?" Fenris asked. The fierce dogs kept by Fereldans were known even as far north as Tevinter, but Fenris had been under the impression that they were a mark of nobility. From Hawke's descriptions, it was apparent that her family was not well off and so he wouldn't have expected them to keep a mabari.

"Yes, actually. We lucked out. Rex was the runt of the litter, and so when he tried to follow me home, the owner was happy to see the last of him," Hawke explained.

Evidently walking away with an unwanted mabari wasn't stealing in Hawke's book. Fenris filed that fact away for later use.

"Don't give me that look!" Hawke said suddenly. "I know what you're thinking, and it's not like that. Mabari aren't like other dogs. They choose which person they want to follow. Once a mabari has imprinted on someone, there isn't much you can do to convince the mabari to leave that person alone." She looked down at her hands. "I do hope Rex is all right. He probably misses me so."

Fenris said nothing for he did not know what to say. Hawke's entire family most likely missed her, even the brother who she set on fire. Pointing out that fact, however, would be of little comfort to her. Rather it would have the opposite effect, and Fenris thought that silence was the best option open to him.

Later that afternoon, when they had stopped at an inn for a meal, Fenris wondered what it would take for Hawke to break from her strict code and allow him to obtain food for them using alternate measures. Meals at inns kept getting pricier, despite Hawke's bargaining skills, and they were running out of funds fast. Of course, his dietary restrictions didn't exactly help with keeping those costs down. The usual specials offered by Antivan inns were either fish stew or baked eel, and Fenris refused to eat either as a matter of principle.

Not that Hawke wasn't guilty of the same. He grinned a bit as he remembered the one time she had tried the baked eel only to spit it out with a look of disgust dawning on her face. His mageling wouldn't have eaten at all that night if he hadn't taken pity on her and insisted that she finish off the remains of his mutton.

"Considering how much they charged us for this slop, you think we would get more," Hawke muttered under her breath.

Fenris raised an eyebrow. "Be careful what you wish for. Are you sure you could stomach more than what's on your plate?" he warned her.

"Fair point," she said. Before Hawke could say anything else, the pair was interrupted by a burly man looming over the side of their table.

"Is your elf's sword real or just for show?" the man grunted.

Fenris curled his lip. Whenever people looked at the pair, they tended to see Hawke's bedraggled mage robes and then assume she was an impoverished noble while he was her sole remaining servant. While it was a useful disguise, it was one he hated nonetheless. The only thing that made it bearable was that Hawke herself detested such assumptions.

"Is that sword real? Of course not," was Hawke's reply. "I couldn't give Fenris a real sword. He might do something dangerous with it like lop off the head of the idiot who decides it's perfectly fine to interrupt our meal."

From the dull glaze in the man's eyes, Fenris could tell that Hawke's sarcasm had gone over his head. He sighed. "What my lady means to say," he said, "is that yes, the sword is real but why are you asking."

The man stood there for a minute pouring over Fenris' words. "Oh. That's good," he finally said. "I have a job for your elf then," he told Hawke.

"And what would that entail?" Fenris asked before Hawke could open her mouth to insert her foot. She glowered at him from across the table, not happy with him taking over the conversation. It was sort of cute how she thought she was intimidating.

"There's a pack of corrupted spiders that's been raiding my livestock. I'll pay you five silver to slay them all."

"Five silver? Are you mad?" Hawke blurted out before Fenris could say a thing. "For a pack of spiders, we would want a sovereign a head."

"A sovereign a head?" The man's mouth dropped open. "If anyone's mad, little lady, it's you. I'm lucky to see that much coin each month. You'll bleed me dry, you will."

And just like that, the bargaining began in earnest. Fenris was content to let Hawke take the lead. She accused the burly man of being an epic tightwad while he insisted that she was trying to leave him penniless and forced to take refuge in the poorhouse. Fenris had to hand it to Hawke; she knew how to drive a hard bargain. If he didn't know better, he would assume that she was the daughter of a merchant, not an apostate.

Hawke had just about settled on the price of twenty silver a head, when Fenris decided it was time add his input. "There's something you're not telling us, isn't there?" he said. "There's no reason that you can't handle a pack of spiders yourself. What is it that you're holding back?"

The big man gaped at Fenris. "You're as mad as she," he gasped out. "Me? Handle a pack of spiders myself? I'm a farmer, not a fighter."

The man's shock seemed genuine. Fenris mused that his fellow slaves hadn't been exaggerating when they spoke of how incompetent most Antivans were when it came to fighting as being the main reason why Antiva didn't have a standing army the way other nations did. He wondered if perhaps they hadn't been pulling his leg when they spoke of how women were treated as well.

"Let's make it twenty-five silver then." Hawke was quick to pounce on any advantage. "With the extra five silver to cover any unexpected contingencies."

"You're a heartless wench," the man exclaimed. "But twenty-five silver it is. When can your elf take care of them?"

Hawke glanced over at Fenris. He shrugged his shoulders and then rose to his feet. "Might as well do it now. There's still light out."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Hawke leapt up to her feet. "We'll be back before you know it," she told the farmer.

"We?" he repeated. "Aren't you staying here? Not that I'm doubting your elf's skills, but isn't it a bit dangerous for you to accompany him?"

And there it was Antiva's unique brand of sexism. "Of course she's coming with me," Fenris said quickly. "You admitted to us that you cannot defend yourself against a pack of animals so I can't depend on you to guard my lady while I'm gone. She is coming with me so I can keep an eye on her." He latched on to Hawke's arm and dragged her out of the inn before she could find a way to get herself into trouble again. If there was one thing he had learned about his mageling in the time that they had been together, it was that she had an unholy talent for ferreting out trouble.

"What was that all about?" Hawke asked after they were out of sight from the inn and well on their way to the field the farmer had told them about.

"It's an Antivan peculiarity. In addition to Antivans not being able to fight, they believe that women are delicate, fragile creatures that need to be sheltered from the world," Fenris explained.

"Huh. Is that it? And here I thought that perhaps the hunters had caught up to us and this was some sort of elaborate trap to separate the two of us," Hawke said.

Fenris winced. He hadn't thought of that, and usually he was the more paranoid of the two of them. "It may be a trap at that," he said finally. "But it might not be and we could use the coin. So we will still go check out this farmer's field but we'll keep an eye out for hunters. Which means you have to be cautious."

"Aren't I always?" Hawke flippantly replied. "Besides either way, we're going to get paid. If there really is a pack of spiders out there, then we'll kill them and that farmer will pay us. On the other hand, if a bunch of slavers are lying in wait for us, then we'll kill them and take their stuff."

Silently Fenris wondered if he had been a bad influence on the mageling. He could have sworn she hadn't been this vicious or paranoid before. But he didn't really have time to linger over the issue for they had things to kill and coin to earn, one way or another.

It turned out that the farmer hadn't been lying. Fenris and Hawke found a pack of seven spiders on the outskirts of the field that the farmer had directed them to. Between Fenris' blade and Hawke's magic, they made short work of the bunch.

"And I think we might have a problem," said Hawke after they had finished. "That farmer is paying us per head. How do we prove to him that we killed seven of these blighted things? We can't just go back and fetch him because the carcasses might be gone by the time we return and then where would we be?"

"Take the fangs," Fenris advised. "That will function as our proof, and what's more we might be able to sell them too."

"Now that's a practical solution. Would have never thought of that myself. There's just one problem."

Of course the mageling found a problem. She excelled at finding problems—and when she couldn't find them, she made them. "Let me guess. You don't fancy reaching into their mouths to take out the fangs," he said deadpan.

"Exactly!" Hawke cried. "It doesn't seem very sanitary and actually it could be quite hazardous as I swear at least one of these spiders were poisonous and—"

Fenris rolled his eyes and knelt down beside the mageling. "Let me," he said. "This is what knives are for," he added. "To cut the fangs out. We should get you one."

"The gauntlets help too, I expect. To protect you against accidentally cutting yourself on your knife or the spider fang."

"There is that. Here." Fenris tossed the fang he had cut out to the ground. "I'll finish harvesting the rest while you pack them up. Wear a pair of gloves when you handle them."

The mageling rolled her eyes at his instructions but did what he said without making any more smart remarks. Before long, they finished collecting the spider fangs and then returned to the inn. The farmer promptly paid them the promised bounty upon spying the fangs. However, he insisted on keeping them, claiming that had been an unspoken part of their bargain all along. To Fenris' surprise, the mageling didn't argue the point.

He asked her about it later as they were walking away from the village. "I thought you would have insisted on the farmer paying for the fangs we brought him," he said.

"Wasn't worth the battle," Hawke replied. "Besides I felt bad the way I got five silver more out of him after you started interrogating him about hiding something from us. It turned out that the job was as he said all along and so…well you may think this is silly of me, but I kind of felt like we didn't earn that extra coin."

"But if the farmer had been hiding something from us—" Fenris started to say.

"In that case, I would have insisted on him paying us for the fangs," Hawke told him.

"I see," said Fenris and then let the matter drop between them.

The pair continued to find small jobs that prevented their coin purse from being empty as they kept traveling east. Fenris' sword would draw glances, and inevitably someone would approach Hawke to see if the elf could take care of a problem for them. It soon became almost a routine for the two. Hawke would take charge and bargain with their potential employer to get the best price for their services. Once the price was settled and it was time to leave, Fenris would insist that Hawke accompany him so that he could personally guarantee her safety.

Alas the mageling liked to veer off script when it pleased her.

"Oh I couldn't stay here," Hawke said to the pair of fisherman trying to hire them. "I have to go with Fenris. To cheer him on, you see. He doesn't fight half as well if I'm not there to rouse his spirits."

The men looked blankly at her, and Fenris was struck with the urge bang his head against the nearest wall. Why did the mageling like to make things difficult?

"Besides, I hate to say it, but he has no sense of direction. If I let him go off on his own, who knows where he would wind up? He probably would get lost on his way out the door."

That was a bit much, Fenris felt. After he had dragged her away from the other men, he gave her a piece of his mind. "You have to cheer me on?" he bit out, repeating her words from earlier. "I'll get lost without you? Tell me, does it please you to paint me as utterly incompetent without you?"

"When you put it that way…but no, that wasn't my intention. I just got bored with our usual routine and so I decided to liven things up."

He scoffed at her explanation. "Perhaps. But perhaps the real reason is that you enjoy tormenting me." Fenris reflected that would certainly explain why the mageling always had a smart reply at the ready.

Hawke laughed and skipped forward a step before turning to face him. Her eyes twinkled at him with merriment. "Very close, Fenris, but not quite. Would you like to know the truth?"

He elected to cross his arms and glare at the unrepentant mageling.

She smiled cheekily up at him. "It's because I know you'll lecture me afterwards. And when you go into lecture mode, your voice drops and it's just—" She sighed. "You have the most beautiful voice, Fenris. I wish you would talk more. Maker knows I keep trying to draw you into a conversation. If you ever want me to shut up…well now you know how."

That night, as they slept out under the stars, separated only by a few feet and the remnants of a fire, Fenris wondered if the mageling would be so quick to flirt with him if she had any idea the sort of effect it had upon him. He doubted that she knew what she did to him. The way she so innocently spoke of him knowing how best to shut her up—she obviously meant for him to speak up more but his thoughts had leapt to covering her mouth with his and kissing her hard till she was left breathless. And no, his fantasies did not stop there.

He turned over on the ground so that he no longer faced the mageling. He found it slightly…disturbing that a mage could inspire such feelings in him. Of course, Hawke wasn't like any other mage he had ever met. If all mages were like her, then there wouldn't be an Imperium, he wouldn't have ever been a slave, and the two of them would have never met.

That last distressed him more than it should. He had first agreed to let Hawke tag along mainly because she wouldn't take no for an answer. He had expected that eventually she would grow tired and they would part ways. But that hadn't come to pass. Instead she stuck by him, and the more time he spent with her, the more he grew to admire her. Hawke talked too much, had an annoying personal code that contradicted itself several times over, and on top of all that was a mage to boot, but despite all that, he was beginning to have trouble imagining life without her. For all that he despised magisters and feared their magic, he found that he could not hate her.

Author's note: Thanks to everyone who left reviews. :D Reading through them really made my day.