It didn't take long at all for Denarius to shove him in a cage. There was a metal loop in the floor of said cage that the shackles around his wrists were attached to, preventing him from sitting up straight. The shackles were lined with some sort of anti-lyrium rune, which prevented him from phasing through them. He was sore, and hungry, and thirsty. And the sound of rain lashing against the side of the ship was nothing but a tease, making him want a drink even more. Luckily he had grown used to the waves tossing the boat, and him, from side to side.
He could hear the clink of dishes and the murmur of voices above him, but the worst part was the smell of ham that kept sending his stomach rolling. He tried to tell himself to get used to it, this was how he used to live, and how he was going to have to live again. His meals were often withheld from him, especially when he did something Denarius disapproved of. And having escaped nine years ago was high on the list of things Denarius disapproved of, hence the cage. He wasn't even in Denarius' room, as he expected he would be kept. Denarius, had put him in the hold, had even hung his sword from the wall by the door to taunt him. He said that, as much as he had missed his 'little wolf' he was having a hard time suppressing his rage at Fenris' disobedience. He was surrounded by crates and other random things, and he had spent plenty of time at first imagining what they might contain. But that game grew boring, quickly.
He sighed loudly and leaned his head against one of the bars, wishing that he could fall asleep and be released from this torment for a short while. But he was far too stressed, his thoughts ran in agonizing circles. He kept wondering if Denarius would keep his word and leave Nero alone, what atrocities would he have to partake in again when they reached Tevinter, what punishments would he have to endure before Denarius was satisfied? The magister had already spent an hour sending burning electricity through his markings, which cause him to scream and spasm in agony. A pain that he had thought he would never have to experience again.
Luckily Denarius was still too angry with him to take him, yet. He did not look forward to those hateful hands on him again, and the selfish, careless abandon the man operated with being forced into him. Not now, not since he learned that there were other, pleasant, blissful ways to experience the act. With a quiet sob he told himself to push those thoughts away, he may not experience it again, but he was giving Nero the opportunity to experience it the rest of his life. He only hoped that reminding himself of this would always bring him a comfort, and not end up causing him pain.
It was difficult to imagine the past nine years were over. So much had happened, he had felt things he did not know existed, he had made his own decisions, he had run his own life. He learned to read, he learned to write, he learned how to win was at cards. He would miss them, all of them. Maybe even Anders, he snorted. Maybe there would come a day that he would miss his old life so much that if he saw Anders he would be joyful, just for the memories the mage would bring. A depressing prospect, indeed.
Would he ever be able to readjust to a slaves life again, now that he knew freedom? I'll have to, or else... How would he be able to stop himself from defending himself when Denarius or other magisters insulted and made fun of him? He had believed their words before, he didn't think he would now. What about if someone smacked him, would he hit them back instinctively? How would he adjust to sleeping on a poorly made straw mattress after sleeping in a nobleman's bed for the past three years? How many punishments would he receive before he re-learned his place?
He felt his muscles tense suddenly, his throat close, and his eyes burn like they were on fire. Being a slave the first time was not enjoyable, but it wasn't so terrifying. How could he complain when he had nothing else to compare it to? Going back to it after tasting freedom...for a moment he considered lowering himself so that he could reach his hand into his own chest and crush his own heart. Slowly he took a deep breath, and refused to let the panic overtake him. He did not know what Denarius would do if he killed himself, but he was fairly certain it would involve Nero, and that was what he was making an effort to avoid. It was a testament to how far he had fallen that he even entertained the idea, even for a moment.
He wished that Denarius was around, it made him nervous, being so close to Kirkwall and not know where the magister was. When they had reached Ostwick they had docked and Denarius had headed into town to rent a place to sleep, as he disliked sleeping on a ship. Or so he said. What if he was waiting for word of Nero's capture, what if Fenris' efforts were in vain, and he had submitted to Denarius' will for no reason whatsoever?
You'll drive yourself mad, thinking like that, you-
He tilted his head in confusion and strained his hearing. It was suddenly, very quiet above him. He was certain that he would have noticed if the sailors had left the kitchen to go elsewhere. Then there was a yell and the clash of metal striking metal. A rival group of slavers, maybe?
...
Nero didn't even need to speak to the harbormaster of Ostwick; as soon as he arrived at the docks he recognized the red and yellow coloring of the ships collapsed sails, even through the misty wind that was making it difficult to see things clearly. He stormed over to the ship, and boarded it without being stopped. No one was out to stop him. Which is good for them, he thought, seeing the ship brought out an anger in him that he hadn't felt since he had confronted Ser Alrik and Eugene under the Gallows.
He didn't even notice the ship swaying roughly on the waves as he approached the only door. It wasn't locked and when he closed it behind him he stopped to listen. He heard some voices coming from down the hall, in a room to the right. Following the sound he found himself on the other side of a closed door and drew his weapons. His stomach didn't even grumble at the smell of food, and later he would realize that this was what Fenris had meant three years ago when he said that anger used to sustain him.
When he had left Kirkwall he had become numb, he wasn't sure what was to blame. The hunger? The exhaustion? Even the horse had collapsed before he reached the city, despite his pushing the essence into it. Normally he would have checked, to make sure the beast was okay, or to kill it if it wasn't, but he just ran. His lungs were still sore from breathing so hard after running so far, he couldn't feel any pain in his legs...but he couldn't really feel them that well at all anymore. I'm going to be a mess when this is all over with, he thought blankly. He wasn't quite running instinctively, but he wasn't capable of much emotion nor thought either.
When he reached his hand out to open the door he realized, though was unsurprised to find, that he was smoking purple again. Ignoring it he threw open the door to find six men sitting at a table, looking at him curiously.
"Where is the elf?" He demanded menacingly.
No one moved for several seconds, and then in a rush one with red hair yelled and, pulling his sword from it's scabbard, he ran at Nero. Nero blocked the blow and waited for a few more of the men to approach him before he let go a pulse of energy, tossing them away from him. He approached the first one that attacked him, stabbing three of them as he walked past their moaning forms on the floor.
When he reached the red-head he grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him from off of the table, where he had landed. Raising his dagger he placed the tip at the side of the man's neck, and asked again, "where is the elf?"
The man shook his head, "I don't know who you mean-"
Nero let the dagger sink a few centimeters into the man's neck, seeing out of the corner of his eye the remaining two men cowering in the opposite corner. The red-head screamed in his hands and Nero scoffed, the cut wasn't deep at all, it was barely even bleeding. He asked the question again.
"Where. Is. The. Elf?"
"He's in the hold, in a cage. Only the apprentice has the key."
"And where is Denarius?"
The man blanched at the mention of the magister's name, but said "he is staying at an inn somewhere in town, I don't know which one."
Nero smiled at him darkly before sinking his dagger into the man to the hilt,his blade was tilted at such an angle that it severed the man's aorta and punctured his right lung. He let go of the red-heads shirt and watched as he fell, effectively releasing his blade. He turned to the two remaining men, ignoring their screams of terror as he slit their throats.
Turning he left the room and closed the door behind him. Seeing a ladder leading downwards on the opposite side of the hall he smirked again, how convenient.
Descending the ladder he found himself in a dark hallway, and didn't move for several minutes as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The hallway was shorter than the one above him, with a closed door at the end of the hall, with four more doors leading to it, two on either side; only one had light shining from under it. It was one of the last doors, and he approached it without pretense.
He threw the door open to find a young man writing at his desk, he wore standard Tevinter robes and had shoulder length, orange hair. For just a moment Nero was caught by how much this man reminded him of Anders, but then he shook his head. Anders may be different, but he knew that the man still wouldn't stand for the things that magisters partake in. He was strongly against blood magic, which was ironic, considering his whole possession thing. Wasn't the making a deal with a demon part the thing that made blood magic bad?
Nero focused his attention on the man, who was now standing, and grabbing his staff.
He charged into the room and grabbed the mage by the throat, pinning him against the wall. "I hear you have a key. I need it." He hissed.
The mage coughed and struggled to get Nero to release him and Nero sighed, dropping the man to the floor, the bastard couldn't give him the key if he was busy trying to breathe. He turned as he heard footsteps approach, presuming that whoever was coming must be reacting to the sound of him throwing the door open.
He saw a foot emerge around the corner of the door frame and jumped to action, swinging his dagger so hard that he not only decapitated the man, but buried it tightly into the door frame. After a couple of attempts to pull it free he snarled and picked the be-headed man's sword off of the floor.
The door across the hall flew open with two more men standing there, weapons at the ready. Nero tried to get the new blade comfortable in his grasp, but abandoned the attempts in favor of running, shoulder first, into the front man, sending him flying into the other man, and forcing them all to the floor.
Nero was the first to recover and rolled to his feet, with a swing of his blades he both stabbed one man in the chest and cut open his stomach. Pulling his blade free he turned to face the remaining man, who stared, dumbfounded, at his dieing friend.
Nero was beginning to get quite annoyed with how easy it was to cut through these men. He would have expected better from Denarius.
After he slit this man's throat open he realized that Denarius probably took the best fighters with him; what magister would expect anyone to rescue a slave?
He shook his head at the magister's stupidity and walked back out into the hall. He didn't realize till too late that he had forgotten about the apprentice. While he was busy with the last two men the mage had fled his room and now stood at the ladder; when he saw Nero he let loose a blast of magic so powerful that it threw him through the door at the end of the hallway and into the hold.
Nero landed in a now broken crate, that appeared to have been filled with some sort of grain. He groaned painfully and rolled onto his side, throwing pieces of wood off of him as he went. He couldn't focus on anything for several minutes, but he forced himself to his feet anyway. He realized that there was a sharp pain in his right side every time he inhaled, and wondered for a second if perhaps he broke something. But then he saw a flash out of the corner of his eye as the mage down the hall tossed a fireball at him. He moved out of the way just in time, causing the fireball to hit the broken crate, but it didn't catch fire.
He quickly realized that he had lost his weapons and searched the floor frantically for them. The mage was advancing down the hall, readying another spell, and Nero glanced nervously at the doorway. Then he saw a familiar sword glinting in the firelight. He grinned manically, and ran to it.
Lethandris, Fenris' sword, was heavy, and he lifted it with a little struggle. He was sure he would never be able to stand up to a long battle with such a blade, but it was the best he could do at that moment. He waited quietly for the mage to get close to the holding area, contacting the river so that he knew the exact location the man stood. The mage was slowly approaching the shattered doorway, but stopped just short of entering.
With a mental shrug he rounded the corner and kicked the mage in the chest, sending him falling to the floor and the second fireball he had readied shot into one of the other rooms. Hefting the sword as far above as he could in the cramped space, he swung it down with as much force as he had. The mage spurted blood from his mouth, and died when Nero went about searching his pockets for the key.
He swore when he couldn't find it and headed into the room he had first encountered the apprentice in. He rolled his eyes as he found the key on the desk, wondering how he missed it the first time he was in the room. He stopped moving for a second, and tried to listen for sounds of anyone else approaching, but couldn't hear much over the sound of his heart beating hard.
When he left the room he tried again to get his dagger out of the door frame, but failed. When he re-entered the hold of the ship it didn't take long for him to locate the elf. Fenris sat in a metal cage, chained to the bottom of it, not four feet away from where he had landed when the spell threw him through the door.
...
Fenris began to get nervous when the sounds of fighting reached the other side of the door. What would Denarius do if he was taken by another group of slavers? Would he realize that's who it was? Or would he assume it was one of Fenris' friends and go after them in Kirkwall? He fought with the chain holding him to the floor and tried to phase through them, even though he knew he couldn't.
He let out a string of curses, but they were cut short by something flying into the room. He turned away from the wood splintering into different directions, and it was only when he heard a familiar groan that he looked over to where the man was rolling to his side. All Fenris could do was gape at him, his mouth hanging open stupidly and too stunned to even form a thought.
He watched helplessly, and with quite a bit of surprise, when Nero took his sword off he wall and took down the mage, Denarius' apprentice. He hadn't even been aware that Nero could lift the thing, much less fight with it, inside a ship, no less.
His brain was suddenly flooded with questions, but he was still too stunned to sort them out. He waited for Nero to return, and when he did he tried desperately to get his mouth to form at least one of his questions. Of course, it was the stupidest one.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, amazement evident in his face.
Nero's brain was screaming at him to get the elf and go. He was fairly certain that if he looked the elf in the face he would fall apart, so he refused to look at Fenris as he unlocked the door to the cage and began unlocking the cuffs, "I'm rescuing you."
Fenris hissed when he stood and his joints and back popped painfully. He was barely out of the cage when he said, "you can't, if you take me, they'll come after you."
Despite what he said, he felt not concern, or worry. He didn't feel anything just then, not even surprise. Later he would conclude that he must have thought he was dreaming. He felt like he embodied the term 'blank'.
Nero ignored him anyway.
The events of the last twenty-four hours began to weigh on Nero, and he was beginning to feel sore, and tired, and very hungry. He lead the elf back the way he had come, only stopping twice. Once when he realized that they should probably hide Fenris, as he was extremely easy to identify, so he searched one of the rooms and found a rather cheaply made, but large, cloak which did a pretty good job of hiding the elf completely. The second time he stopped was when he found one of his blades on the ground, and to let Fenris fetch his sword and try, unsuccessfully, to get Nero's other dagger out of the wall. He frowned, but left it. He could buy another one.