Promises: Chapter Five
Disclaimer: Dragon Age and all assorted characters/places/etc are still not mine. If they were, there would have been tons more Fenris dialogue in Legacy.
The battle with the slavers was short and brutal. They never saw the combined attack of Fenris and Hawke coming. Fenris took out five with his first strike, and Hawke's magic finished several more off. Even the elf who the slavers had cornered turned out to be of some use as he drew out a pair of daggers that he used with deadly efficiency. All in all, it only took them a matter of minutes to rid the world of a few more slavers.
The other elf approached them when the battle was over, sheathing his blades as he walked and running a hand through his blond hair. "It seems that I owe you a debt of gratitude," he said. "I do not know what would have happened to me if you hadn't stepped in."
"You would be dead," Fenris said bluntly. He turned his attention to cleaning his gear and left the task of convincing the other elf to leave them alone to Hawke.
"Charming as always, Fenris," Hawke muttered to him softly. She turned a winsome smile on the other elf. "No thanks are needed," she told him. "Killing slavers is Fenris' favorite hobby. Actually scratch that…I think it's his only hobby."
"That counts as a hobby?" The blond elf shook his head and clucked his tongue. "It doesn't seem like much of one to me." He directed his next words towards Fenris with a lascivious grin. "If you like I can show you a more…fulfilling pastime."
"From you? No," Fenris said shortly.
The other elf didn't know when to give up. "Oh? Well then perhaps you would like to give and I could receive?"
Fenris simply glared at the blond elf, not deigning to answer. Wiping his blade clean of blood, he slung it back on to his back and then stepped behind Hawke, placing the mageling between him and the other elf as he wanted no more lewd offers from the fool. Unfortunately that action only made the blond elf turn his attentions on to Hawke, which wasn't an improvement.
"So I know the handsome elf cowering behind you is called Fenris, but I am afraid that I have not caught your name, my lady." He offered Hawke a florid bow, a charming smile on his face as he awaited her reply. Fenris was struck with the sudden urge to punch that smile off of the other elf's face.
"Isn't it rude to ask for someone else's name when you haven't told them yours?" Hawke asked aloud, acting as though she hadn't heard the assassin's name earlier.
The elf gasped in mock-horror and took a step back. "Ah! Forgive me such a transgression, my lady. Standing before you is none other than Zevran Arainai, assassin and lover extraordinaire."
"Funny that. You seemed to be failing miserably when it came to either assassinating or seducing those slavers," Fenris couldn't help but say.
"Fenris," Hawke said, her voice a mild rebuke. She sighed softly and then spoke to the assassin. "I'm glad we were able to help you, Zevran. My name is Hawke—"
"Hawke? What a lovely name for such a lovely lady." Zevran stepped forward and captured Hawke's right hand in his, lifting it up to press a kiss against it. Hawke blushed furiously, and it was all Fenris could do not to growl his disapproval. He was now regretting saving the handsome blond elf; clearly they should have let the slavers kill the assassin before killing the slavers.
"So um….I hope you'll forgive me my curiosity," Hawke stammered, her cheeks still bright red, "but I was wondering why those slavers were after you."
"My dear girl, you do not have to beg forgiveness for anything from me," Zevran said. He waggled his eyebrows at Hawke. "And as for why the slavers were after me—they were not. I was after them."
"I see," said Hawke slowly. "You were after them. Good job catching them, I guess. But didn't you think about how you were going to deal with them after you caught up to them?"
"Obviously not," Fenris noted. The other two continued to ignore his somewhat grumpy contributions to the conversation.
"I thought that my good looks and charm would sway them into giving me the information I needed from them."
"How did that work out for you?" It warmed Fenris' heart to hear that sarcastic quip out of Hawke's mouth.
"It didn't." The assassin heaved a mighty sigh. "In retrospect, I should have put more thought into taking this job to begin with."
"Job? You mentioned you're an assassin. Who do you work for?" Hawke asked.
Fenris spoke up before the assassin could answer. "He's an Antivan and an assassin. Which means he's a Crow." Then another possibility occurred to him. "Either that or he has a death wish to set up shop in the Crows' territory."
The assassin snorted in amusement. "Indeed, my friend, one would have to be very foolish to compete with the Crows in their home territory. Despite what you might think of me, I am not such a fool. Rather I am a Crow, just like you said, and my current target was this particular ring of slavers."
"That's strange. I never heard of the Antivan Crows having a problem with Tevinter slavers before despite the fact that the slavers have always operated in Antiva," Fenris said dryly.
"Indeed." Zevran coughed once, then twice. "You are right again, my friend. You are right so often—it makes me think of how right we could be together."
"I'm not your friend," Fenris said through gritted teeth, ignoring the other elf's continued blandishments.
Zevran shook his head sadly before going on to respond to Fenris' earlier statement. "Like most powers in Thedas, traditionally the Crows have turned a blind eye towards the activities of slavers in Antiva. However when a ring decides to go after and then capture a group of the Crows' prized recruits…that's a whole different matter entirely."
"That's the information you hoped to get out of them, isn't it?" Hawke pressed. "Where they're hiding the recruits they've captured."
"Well mostly yes. This assignment requires two things of me—rescuing the Crows' recruits and killing the ring's leader in order to make an example of him. Alas the leader of this particular slaver ring is a man by the name of Brax, who is rather infamous even in Antiva for his cruelty."
Fenris started when the assassin named his target. He had heard of that slaver before. Brax was one of Danarius' main providers of new slaves, and in particular, most of the slaves from Antiva had been captured by him. Fenris wondered if his former master had already sent orders for the slaver to hunt down and kill him.
"Needless to say, I wasn't able to find anyone willing to volunteer information about him for fear of reprisals," Zevran continued, "and so I had to turn to convincing his men to talk."
"I hate to be the one to point this out, but seeing how well that went for you, you might want to reconsider your strategy," said Hawke. "Maybe you should just focus on rescuing your recruits?" she suggested.
"Ah but there's the rub. I can't. Once you take an assignment, you have to complete it," the assassin replied. "If you don't…well the Crows didn't get their reputation for infallibility by allowing failure."
Fenris blinked. That was information he hadn't been privy to. "So you mean to say that the Crows will kill you if you don't complete both tasks?" he asked.
"Exactly, my friend. You are right again. Are you sure you don't—"
"You know it isn't any wonder that you haven't gotten very far seeing how hard you find it to stay on task." Hawke twitched her nose in annoyance. Evidently the assassin's constant flirtations were wearing down on her too. Somehow it made Fenris feel a little better to know that he wasn't the only one who was growing impatient with the fool before them.
"My darling girl, you have no idea how hard I am—"
"Trying to complete your assignment?" Hawke finished the assassin's sentence before he could make another lecherous remark. "Not very if this conversation is anything to go by. It makes me wonder why the Crows picked you to rescue their precious recruits. Didn't they have anyone better?"
"Most likely their better assassins didn't feel like risking their own skin to go after Brax," Fenris said before the assassin, who had clutched his hands to his chest as though wounded, could get a word in edgewise. "I have heard of this Brax. His vicious tendencies are known far and wide across Thedas."
"Yes, which makes it blasted hard to find anyone willing to help no matter how much coin I offer them." A gleam appeared in the assassin's eye. "Although…I believe the young lady mentioned that your hobby is killing slavers, yes?"
Fenris mentally cursed Hawke's smart tongue for what must have been the hundredth time since he met her. "No," he said. He was not foolish enough to throw away his life helping the idiot before him with his nigh-impossible task.
Unfortunately the blond elf was nothing if not crafty and turned his attention to Hawke. "Did you misspeak perhaps?" he asked. "Here I thought that I had found some sympathetic souls, someone who would feel for my poor brothers-in-arms who even now have probably given up all hope of being rescued."
Hawke's eyes brimmed with tears, and Fenris could see that Zevran's words had struck their mark. He supposed he couldn't blame Hawke for falling for that story, given how she herself had been in a similar situation not all that long ago. Still Fenris' instincts were screaming at him that there was something very important that the assassin was not telling them. There was more to his story than he let on.
Fenris decided to confront the assassin. "You're not telling us everything, are you?" he bit out.
Zevran spread out his hands, palms up, before him. "Nothing I have said to you is untrue," he protested.
Fenris narrowed his eyes. The other elf looked as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, which only made Fenris more suspicious. "I don't believe you," he announced. "And I definitely don't trust you. Our answer is no."
"Fenris!" came Hawke's sharp rebuke. "Your instincts have been wrong before," she said, prompting him to remember the first farmer they had helped. "He needs our help to put an end to this slaving ring. How can you—"
He clenched his fists at his side, fighting back the urge to snap at the impressionable mageling. Couldn't she see that there was a world of difference from the simple farmer who wanted a few spiders slain versus the conniving assassin who now stood before them? Fenris knew without a doubt that the blond elf had carefully tailored his story to ensure that any shady details were trimmed away.
However Fenris knew that it would be difficult to convince Hawke of that fact. She had fallen for the assassin's story hook, line, and sinker because it was so like her own. His best bet was to emphasize to her how dangerous this particular band of slavers were in order to get her to see things his way. "Easily, Hawke. I refuse to risk our lives going up against one of the most brutal slavers in all of Thedas. This Brax is feared even in Tevinter."
"Tevinter, you say?" Zevran looked Fenris up and down. He snapped his fingers. "You are from Tevinter! Of course! Why did I not see it before? You are the elf that Brax is after."
"What?" exclaimed Fenris and Hawke in unison.
Zevran dug around in his pack, extracting some papers from it. "See here. I got this from the first batch of slavers I ran across. It seems that Brax has received orders from a magister from Tevinter to capture you dead or alive." He thrust the papers at Fenris.
"Bah! Such documents are easily forged." Fenris pushed the papers aside, not caring to reveal that he could not read them, but Hawke caught them before they could hit the ground.
"Um…these documents look convincing to me," Hawke said. "They describe you in great detail. Although not how I would describe you because they leave out the fact that you're tall, dark, and brooding but it's a pretty good match." She smiled winsomely up at him.
Fenris glowered at the mageling. She was not helping, not with the way she was being taken in so easily by the assassin. He switched his glare over to the other elf, who was projecting an aura of innocence that all but screamed that he shouldn't be trusted.
Fenris sighed. Hawke was the most stubborn person he had ever come across; once she had made up her mind about something, she could not be swayed from her path. He would not let her forge ahead alone, no matter how much of a mistake it was. She needed him to protect her, and protect her he would.
Besides even if the documents were forged, Brax was likely to come after him sooner or later. At least this way they could go after the slaver and his associates while getting paid for their trouble.
"We'll do it for half your take," he said sternly.
"Excuse me?" The assassin blinked.
"You heard me." This was not a point Fenris was going to concede. If he was going to accept the other elf's story at face value, he damn well was going to get paid for it.
Thankfully Hawke stood firm with him there. "You did mention that you were getting paid for Brax's death along with the recruits' return," she said in that sweet voice of hers. "And that if you didn't deliver on both, the Crows would kill you themselves. The way I see it, paying us half your fee is a bargain really."
Zevran looked from Hawke to Fenris and then back to Hawke again but to no avail. "Fine," he said with a disgruntled moue on his face. "It is not like I have people lining up to help. Quite the opposite in fact. Half my fee I will pay you."
Author's note: Thanks to everyone who was kind enough to leave a review. I always love reading what people think of my stories, good or bad.