When Fenris woke up it was still dark. His fast beating heart and the feeling of unrest in his stomach told him he had had a nightmare. He could not recall what it had been about, or who had been in it. All he remembered was laughter, and the constant echo of three words: "waste of time. Waste of time. Waste of time. Waste of time."

Who had been laughing at him? Had it been Danarius? Or Hadriana? His sister? Or perhaps even Hawke? Hawke was the one who had spoken those words, he recalled now. "I hate waiting. Waste of time." Fenris did not like waiting either. He wanted to see his sister, talk to her. He wanted to have a family. He wanted to live like a free man. The sooner, the better.

"Waste of time."

No, it was not a waste of time. He now knew enough to track his sister down. If only Pete had not been on his way yet... He could ask Varric if he knew a way to contact Pete. If he could reach the man, he could send him the right way, and then things would soon be arranged. He had made his decision, and he would not let this opportunity pass.

"Waste of time."

Good you finally realized that, Hawke.

A snorting sound coming from his left drew his attention. Hawke's mabari was sleeping on the other side of the bed, next to him. He suspected Hawke had instructed the dog to not let Fenris leave, but that had not been necessary. After his failed attempt to go Maker-knows-where, Fenris realized he was in no condition to go anywhere yet. The loss of blood had left him weak, and he felt the beginning of a throbbing headache. Stupid wine.

"Why can't I hate you?"

Fenris turned his face in his pillow and groaned. Fastevas! Did I really say that? Why did he insist on making a fool out of himself when it came to Hawke? Let's add this to the things we do not speak of.

Perhaps it was better if he left. Time to move on to a place where nobody knew his face or his name. Hide in a new city where no one had heard of the Champion of Kirkwall. Or Magister Danarius. Waiting for Danarius to drag him out of the mansion had gained him nothing so far, so there was not really any point in staying. Building a life was hopeless as long as Danarius lived. Leaving Kirkwall was the logical thing to do, especially after that ambush. He could continue the search for his sister elsewhere, hire someone else. Pete would probably never find her with the little information he had.

There was only one thing that got in the way. One reason he could not simply leave Kirkwall for good. Fenris had sworn Hawke his loyalty. He was in Hawke's debt. Hawke had not shied away when Fenris had told him the true job was going to a Tevinter magister's house and kill him. Then Fenris had thought the man must really need coin to accept a job like that, but that assumption had been proven wrong. Hawke had helped him with Hadriana for free, risked his own life without the promise of coin. He had not even made up for his betrayal in the Fade yet. Even when he served Hawke for the rest of his life, he could never repay him.

Fenris' fingers curled around the red fabric around his right wrist. He had renewed his promise when he had left that night. He would continue to fight at Hawke's side, as long as he needed him. He would not let him down again.

And thus he could not leave. He would not break his word another time, especially not his word to Hawke. As long as Hawke did not tell him he no longer required his aid, Fenris would serve as his 'pet elf'. He did not care what others called him, what they thought of him. That the idea to never see that stubborn, problem-attracting mage again added a tiny bit to his reluctance to leave he tried to ignore.

Fenris shifted a little closer to the sleeping hound. His presence was oddly comforting. He kept staring into the darkness a long time before his eyes slowly closed and he drifted off to sleep again.

The next time he was woken up by Hawke, who came into the bedroom and opened the curtains to let the sunlight in.

"Good morning. Had a good night's rest? Feeling better?"

Fenris turned away from the window and shielded his eyes with one hand. "My head has felt better."

"The wine? Again, sorry about that. I should have known better. Here, I have brought some water and an apple. You have to eat something."

Fenris pushed himself a bit upright, and was greeted by a long, wet lick of the mabari.

"Mabs, time to get off the bed, you lazy bastard. And you know you are not allowed to lick people's faces. It's gross. I have seen what you licked last with that tongue."

Mabs cocked his head at Hawke and let out a disappointed whine before he obeyed and jumped off the bed.

Fenris rubbed his face to remove the mabari's saliva from his cheek. Hawke sat down on the bed and held out a bowl filled with slices of apple. Fenris took one. While he chewed on the piece of fruit, Hawke gestured at the shape of his leg, covered by the sheet.

"Can I heal it now? Is that okay?"

Fenris nodded, knowing there was no point in continuing to postpone it. Hawke pulled back the sheets to inspect the wound. He hissed through his teeth in disapproval.

"I can't believe I did not see this. I have to clean it before I can heal it properly. I'll be right back."

Hawke got up from the bed and left the bedroom. While he waited for Hawke to return, Fenris studied the ugly gash in his thigh. It was too deep to close by itself, so the cut was still open. It was just a flesh wound - fortunately no major artery had been hit - but it was a nasty one.

Within a few minutes Hawke came back with a bowl of water and towels. He installed himself next to Fenris again, grabbed one of the towels and dipped a tip in the warm water.

"This is going to hurt," he warned before he brought the wet towel to the injury. His eyes went to Fenris as he touched the cut, but Fenris did not even flinch. Hawke shook his head and chuckled.

"You are tough." I have known worse pain. Still, the cleaning was not a pleasant experience, so he found himself asking a question to distract himself.

"I have never understood why you called your dog Mabs."

Hawke did not look up from his work, but Fenris could see his mouth curl in a smile. "It's Mabsy, some kind of weird derivation of mabari. I was not the one who came up with it. It was Bethany's fault. When she heard we were getting a mabari, she insisted on calling him Mabsy. I wanted to name him something cool and manly. Griffon, or Dragon, or Demon! But even though the stupid dog decided to get imprinted on me, he refused to listen to anything but Mabsy. Mabs was the closest to a compromise I could get."

A low growl came from the other side of the room.

"Eavesdropping, are we? Well, you can't deny it's a silly name. Perhaps you're female after all."

Another growl, longer and even deeper than the previous one.

"Okay, okay. I take that back. Now go bother Bodahn. I think he has breakfast for you."

With a happy bark Mabsy trotted out of the room.

Fenris could not withhold a laugh. "If I had to choose between Mabsy and Demon, I think I would have gone for the first one as well."

"I hope he didn't hear that. Why do you have to take the dog's side," Hawke complained, with a smile playing around his mouth that betrayed his amusement.

They fell silent for a while, but Hawke had to go deeper into the wound to get all the filth out, and that made for a more and more unpleasant experience.

"I..." Fenris inhaled sharply at the feeling of an extra vicious sting, "I have been thinking about the story you told me. About the dog and the dragon."

"I'm almost done. Hold on. What about the story?"

"The ending still makes no sense to me. The only way I can think of to get the dragon inside the cave, was for the dog to go into the cave so that the dragon would follow. But how did the dog get past the dragon again? And how was the entrance closed off with the dragon still in the cave?"

"You over think this far too much."

"I just want to know why you would let me waste my time with nonsense like that."

"Done." Hawke withdrew the cloth and looked up. "It's not nonsense. You have to practice reading, so it always serves that goal."

Fenris frowned, still not satisfied. "I can learn to read with more logical stories."

Hawke stared at him for a moment, then sighed. "Okay, I give up. The ending I told you yesterday is not the real ending of the book. It is the ending Father told me when he read it to me."

"So your father made that up? Why?"

"In the real story, the dog dies. Or, actually, it disappears. When the boy and the girl reach the cave, the entrance is blocked by large rocks, and they can hear the dragon roar inside. They look everywhere, but the dog is nowhere to be found." The look on Hawke's face turned absent as he drifted off into his memories. "I made Father read that story so many times. I loved it. It was years later, when I had learned to read myself, that I picked the book up again. Then I found out how the real ending went." He laughed briefly. "I was so upset. It was more the surprise that it did not end the way I thought it would than that I was actually sad for the dog. I was not prepared for an unhappy ending. I remember running to Mother in tears and clutching her skirts in a sadness I could not explain to her." His mind turned back to the present, and he looked at Fenris in a way that seemed apologetic. "I thought it would be better if you heard the ending Father told me so long ago first. I don't know why."

"Did your father say why he lied to you about the ending?"

Hawke looked surprised. "Well, to protect me, of course. From the disappointment of a sad ending I suppose. Children's stories have happy endings. Everybody is supposed to live happily ever after. The writer of that book was just an asshole. Who lets a story for children end like that?"

Fenris offered no further response, thinking about Hawke's words. He did not see the logic in hiding the way things went in life. The world was a harsh place. It did not offer mercy. The sooner you learned this, the better. What was the point in trying to deny it? It would make reality only a more unwelcome surprise when it decided to kick you in the face. Surely Hawke knew that too. Yet Hawke did not seem mad at his father for this useless cover-up. Instead he appeared happy with the memory. Not only that, he had tried to do the same.

The flame of anger lit up inside him. He did not have to be protected from the truth! Did Hawke really believe he could not handle the sad ending of a stupid dog in a story made up for children? He had seen and experienced far worse. He was not made of glass.

"Enough of my childhood memories," Hawke interrupted Fenris' growing resentment. "This still needs to be healed. I promise I'll try to find only stories with very depressing, logical endings for you."

Without waiting for Fenris to say something, Hawke placed his hands close to the wound in his thigh. As usual, the markings started to glow, first in reaction to Hawke's touch, then even brighter because of the healing magic that did its work.

Fenris immediately felt his annoyance fade. The warm sensation of the magic spreading through his leg and even further was soothing. Tension left him, allowing him to relax. Automatically he closed his eyes, to experience the feeling to the fullest. Not only the pain in his leg disappeared. Even the headache seemed to lessen until it was nothing but a vague discomfort. While he was leaning back with his eyes closed, he realized Hawke had attempted to share something from his youth with him. A father shielding him from the hurt a sad tale could cause, a mother holding him when that pain had found a way into his heart. He knew none of it. If he had ever had it, Danarius had taken it from him, exchanging it for pain and loneliness. He was less than a dog. Hawke's mabari had chosen his own name, refused to obey when Hawke had tried to call him something ridiculous. Had his master decided to name him Demon, it would not have occurred to him to protest. He would have been Demon.

One day, Danarius would pay for what he had done. One day, he would pull his master's black, rotten heart from his chest.

It took a while before Fenris became aware of the healing being complete. Yet he still felt one of Hawke's fingers following a branch of his markings. Fenris opened his eyes to see Hawke tracing one of the lines on his leg. The lyrium lit up under his touch, a blue light following Hawke's finger on its path.

"Stop that." He pushed Hawke's hand away.

"Sorry. I was just... thinking. About your markings. I noticed... well, when you get hurt, the injury usually damages the markings as well, right? And when I heal you, the markings are whole again, even though I do not direct my magic at them. I focus on the wound. And I thought your markings could be seen as some kind of unnatural wounds... So I thought maybe I could remove them by healing them. But it doesn't seem to work that way. If I try to direct my magic at them, it just... bounces off, or it is absorbed. I don't know. "

Fenris took a deep breath to steady himself. "You... tried to remove my markings? Without asking me?" As much as he hated the lyrium in his flesh and the agony it had brought him, the markings had also proven invaluable to his escape. He would not have been able to remain free as long as he had without their help. Many times he had wished to be rid of them, but now Hawke brought up the possibility, the idea made him feel vulnerable. Without the markings he would just be an elf with a sword.

Startled, Hawke hastened to respond. "No, no, it's not like that. I have thought about it, and paid extra attention to what happened just now." He brought his finger to Fenris' leg again. "Here the cut went through the markings. When I healed it, I noticed... I'm not sure how to describe it. The healing worked, obviously, but the last part, the lines... they fixed themselves. I just tried to heal the skin, but the markings came through it again. I don't even think they 'used' my magic to do so."

"Is there a point to this?"

"Not really, no. Just that I don't understand anything about your markings, but hey, that's not the only part of you I don't understand."

Fenris pulled the sheets back up to cover himself. Why was it so cold in Hawke's room? Despite having slept for hours, he felt tired. Talking to Hawke only seemed to exhaust him further. He needed to be alert for that, but instead his head became more and more clouded. The subject of his markings had made his headache return with new strength as well.

"I do not want you experimenting on me," he mumbled, looking away from Hawke. "I am not a test subject you can use to satisfy your curiosity."

Hawke crawled over the bed until he appeared in Fenris' visual field again. "Fenris." Reluctantly, Fenris fixated his eyes on Hawke's serious face. "I only want to help you. This is not about my curiosity. I am not another crazy mage who loves experimenting on other people. You always speak of never having wanted those things in your skin. I thought you would like it if I could remove them. I can't though, so I'm sorry if I have given you false hope."

Fenris sighed. He could not blame Hawke for not understanding this. He did not want the markings. But for the time being he needed them. He needed them to separate Danarius' heart from his chest. "As soon as Danarius is dead, I will be glad to have them removed. But not yet."

"But wouldn't it solve your problems? You said Danarius wants the lyrium, not you. Without the markings, he'd have no reason to hunt you."

"You do not know my master. He would still feel the need to punish me for ruining his investment. There is no way to be free of him. Except when he is dead."

"But maybe he has given up now, after Hadriana..."

"He will never give up, Hawke! How can you not get that?"

"I don't know. There is a lot I don't get, it seems... Speaking of that... care to tell me now what you were up to? Why you left the city and came back to be ambushed?"

"Waste of time" "I... no. This is my business. I have to do this myself. Therefore I want to keep it to myself for now."

"I see." Hawke's expression turned hard. A shadow shifting behind his clear blue eyes indicated that another wall had been put up. Fenris could almost feel the distance grow between them. Why was it that every time they seemed to take a small step towards each other, a bigger step backwards followed? He knew it was his fault. He was torn between the need to share his concerns and hopes with Hawke, and his pride, his need to show he could still accomplish things on his own. That had failed dramatically of course, by ending up on Hawke's doorstep severely injured. No, he should not be bothered by this. They were supposed to keep their distance from each other. He needed to get Hawke out of his mind, and Hawke should not keep trying to... whatever it was Hawke kept trying to do.

"Pity. I thought you would at least trust me a little by now."

That hurt, despite what he had just told himself. "This is not about trust, Hawke. I have to do this. On my own."

"Fine. Do what you wish then. But you can better hope I will be home next time to patch you up. I could be at one of those stupid dinners."

"I do not need the mighty Hawke for everything I do! Nor do I need your permission or approval. Or were you going to freeze me on my spot to prevent me from going anywhere by myself?"

Hawke leaned closer, his whole face now guarded, his eyes locked to hide the thoughts that would sometimes shine through. "I doubt you would feel it; you're just one big brooding ice cube anyway. But the idea of a little fire is tempting. Perhaps it would meld you a little."

Fenris was spared the need to reply by Bodahn, who appeared in the doorway. "Messere, serah Tethras is here."

"Oh, good. Let him come in." Hawke got up from the bed and looked down at Fenris. "Perhaps he has tracked down your blade."

Varric came strolling into the room, as usual appearing in a good mood. "Morning Hawke. Elf. Am I interrupting something?"

"Not at all," Hawke said, a bit coldly. The flash of interest that went over the dwarf's face indicated he had noticed that detail. "Did you find something?"

"You sound like you doubted me, serah! Of course I have been successful. It seems Jimmy has found it. He is trying to sell it now." He snickered. "Man can barely lift the damn blade, I think."

"Good work, Varric. Do you know where we can find Jimmy?"

"He has found himself a corner in Darktown."

"Excellent. I'll go see if Aveline has time to come with us. If the Champion can't convince Jimmy to return the blade, perhaps the captain of the guard can." And with that, Hawke left the bedroom.