Nemesis

by omnomanon

Marian Hawke, Champion and mage, encounters an old friend for the first time since the Gallows. After a fierce and brief encounter, they begin a wild trek through Thedas, seeking both a greater enemy as well as their own redemption in each others' eyes.

6. Riptide

Nemesis
Chapter 6- Riptide

"With all due respect, sharks are only surprising if they catch you on land."
-Marian Hawke

"And there you go," Rajun smirked wryly at her and pulled his lock picks away to reveal the open and benevolent expanse of broken and torn skin beneath.

The hated cuffs fell from her wrists and clunked heavily against the floor as she breathed an equally weighted sigh of relief. He crouched casually between her legs while she sat perched almost daintily upon a trunk at the foot of his bed. The door leading to the rest of the ship was closed for her sense of privacy as well as Rajun's lewd comfort at having a female crewmember so close at hand. Fortunately, if she'd learned anything about the man before her in the half-day they'd known one another, it was that Rajun was a shrewd businessman first and a slaver second. As a result, she suspected that he would avoid anything untoward so long as they remained on land and the chance for her to escape remained a viable option.

Once they were on the water, however, Hawke rightfully worried that could change.

His quarters were, in a single word, massive. A table large enough to seat six for a meal or Wicked Grace waited in a small alcove, the bed was large enough to host a small orgy without overcrowding and a small private bath adorned the suite. A single bookcase displayed dozens of thin legers, likely cargo manifestos and dossiers on members of the crew. Everything was bolted to the floor, likely to prevent bad weather or a harsh wave from upending all his belongings.

Realizing he was waiting expectantly for some sort of response, she offered him a grudging, "Thank you," before her critical eyes regarding her hands in earnest, the dried and coagulating blood rendering her touch slightly gummy as she experimentally tapped them to one another. Rolling her wrists tentatively, the gashes ached and oozed with the beginning stages of infection. Rajun watched raptly as she used her fingers to squeeze thick pus from the wounds until the blood ran dark, pure and red; then with a peaceful summon she closed the cuts, leaving only a light silvery bracelet adorning each wrist where the abhorrent shackles had been. They would fade to nothing in due time… whenever that should pass.

His eyes glittered greedily at the small miracle she'd performed before him. Having spent so much time with other apostates in the recent past, it was easy to forget that magic was a thing of such intangible mystery to the ungifted. "You're lucky," Rajun observed casually as he shifted his weight and seated himself on the floor, rocking back to rest his weight on his heels as he regarded her.

He seemed determined to conduct his manner with her in a sort of enforced casualness; while he was clearly in awe of her talents, he was dogged in his resolve to consider her as another mere underling. It was actually comforting in an odd way, to be treated like a mere woman instead of someone who could rip a human asunder with only a wayward thought. She laughed mirthlessly and pulled away before questioning, "Why would you say that?"

He gave her a long look; regarding first the cuffs on the floor and then the angry burn still marring her face. His eyes darkened into something strange and fierce; he stared at the wound until the intense scrutiny had her turning her face away to conceal it from his critical gaze. She wasn't sure what the look meant- anger? Pity? Compassion? Was he plotting something? Whatever it was that motivated his expression, Hawke had the distinct feeling that it would end poorly for her.

"Men who inflict wounds like that tend to be the fatal kind," he said bluntly but she heard a soft subtext as he stared, seemingly through her turned cheek and straight to the brand on the opposite side. She heard his unspoken declaration that he was not a man of Maison's stock but knew from his choice of profession that he was of an even worse sort.

That he considered bartering unwilling flesh better than the torture delivered by the man who had so wounded her only spoke more loudly to the darker notions of his character's integrity. She closed her eyes as her hatred for the man before her threatened to consume and raze her mind back into the soft earth where she abandoned her companions, splayed open and unburied. Feeling the button in her pocket pressing against her thigh, she brought her mind back to her connection with the Fade and allowed it to temper her anger. Once she made it to Minrathous, she could put this whole sordid ordeal behind her and continue on her mission.

With her wits solidly about her once more, she muttered sarcastically, "I'm sure it's all a wacky misunderstanding," she paused and examined her wrists once more, desperately trying to avoid making further eye contact with the captain. "There's probably a nice 'Oops! Sorry about the torture,' card waiting for me back at the inn."

He rolled his eyes and propped his elbow upon her thigh, resting his chin on his palm as he stared up at her once more in a manner that made her patently uncomfortable. "So are you ever going to tell me your name?" he asked.

Without a thought, she spoke the name that plagued her mind first. "Lydia," she responded quietly. Her given or family names were all too easily connected with her wanted status with the Chantry and giving Rajun that sort of ammunition against her would have been utterly stupid on her part. Regardless of his seeming friendliness with her, she could not risk thinking of him as anything other than another mortal enemy set upon tearing her down. She'd come too far to make such an unforgivable gaff.

Ignoring her apprehension or perhaps hyper-aware of it, he pressed on. "Do you have a last name, Lydia?"

She'd never known Lydia's last name and couldn't conjure one in her mind quickly enough to seem believable. "Not one you need concern yourself with," she answered instead with a cold politeness as she turned her gaze to the window, back to the shore that held the city that had brought her to the point of anxiety where she could sit before this man and not simply rip his throat out.

With a quirk of his eyebrow he gestured for her to rise before turning his focus to the trunk she'd been using as a bench. The lock was expertly undone- she hadn't even seen him produce a key- and opened to reveal not gold or valuables but layer upon layer of clean clothing. Pulling out a few garments, he passed them to her. "It would be a waste of soap to try and clean those, Lydia. I never could understand why anyone would want to wear white," he mused with a smirk as he regarded the many stains covering her clothing where the blood had seeped through the chains on her wrists and run down her face to soak the neckline.

She clutched the clothing closer as he led her to her room, which shared a wall with his own. He produced a small skeleton key and said, "These are your quarters. A bath should be waiting for you. You can't be treating the crew while you look and smell like death itself. Be quick, you have things to do."

She nodded and ducked inside, shutting the door solidly behind her. Leaning wearily against the heavy door, she took a moment to breathe deeply and once again steady her mind from the whirlwind she'd been swept up into. Her breath seemed like the only thing she could hope to control in this environment. Was she insane for even considering this? No, she was desperate- there it was, plain and simple. She was a creature of survival and while she wasn't making deals with demons, this felt sickeningly close enough.

Her quarters on The Bloodied Bandit were more spacious than those on The Veiled Blue but she found herself uncaring. The first thing on her mind was the promised bath, so desirable that she nearly collapsed to her knees in thanks when she saw the tiny tub filled nearly to the brim with steaming water- first taking a basin of the water and using a sponge to scrub away days of grime, sweat and blood from her skin before she submerged herself within the tub to cleanse her weary body of the remaining filth. She soaked and scrubbed for nearly an hour before heaving herself out of the cooling water and donning Rajun's breeches and oversized shirt, which hung around her like a lover's embrace, exposing either a shameful expanse of her chest or falling stubbornly off her shoulder without even a breast band to protect her modesty.

Fastening his pants with a belt, she slipped Hoppers' eye into the threadbare pocket and caught a quick sight of herself in the mirror as she made for the door once more. The burn was char black with tiny blisters pocking the edges. Hesitantly, she brought her fingers to probe the damage. The scab, softened from her bath, felt like damp black soil against her smooth flushed cheeks. A soft application of pressure brought a blindingly sharp pain on the edges. As a test, she forced her cheeks into a wide smile; the abject pain set her eyes to watering almost uncontrollably. Fortunately, the scab was moist enough to not simply tear away and leave the wound exposed, flexing with the movement to continue its protection. Blinking the tears from her eyes, she breathed a sigh of relief- at least the brand hadn't damaged the nerves. She could deal with the superficial aspects of it later- Rajun was expecting her.

Opening the door revealed said slaver captain waiting on her with utter impatience, foot tapping and eyes rolling. "Follow me, princess," he growled as he led her deeper into the bowels of the hull. The path to the slaves' quarters was a maze in itself, likely to disorient any trying to make a break for it, but before she thought to question it, Rajun offered, "I commissioned this ship from an Orlesian shipbuilder who specialized in prison vessels. Cost a fortune but the craftsmanship has paid for itself thrice over. You'll want to memorize the paths." He smirked darkly and added, "You don't want to run into the things that go bump in the night," before unchaining an iron gate and leading her through, grabbing a small oil lantern on the way.

The condition of the slaves and their quarters was beyond abysmal. The acrid stench of sour vomit and bodily waste stung her eyes and she had to fight the urge to gag. The slaves themselves were clearly starving and sick; she had to at least wonder how much of their state was due to illness and how much due purely to their hopeless situation and general mistreatment. Steeling herself, she ducked down to examine one of the captives, a woman whose age was masked by layers of caked on dirt and the dried vomit on her chin. Even through that and in this dim light, she could see the yellowing of her eyes and the sallow quality of her complexion. Jaundice, whatever was afflicting them was at least slightly hepatic but that hardly narrowed down the possibilities.

"The crew looks like this, too?" she asked Rajun quietly as she rose from the woman and regarded her unlikely host.

"About a quarter of them," he answered, holding the lantern aloft to spread the dim light's reach to hauntingly illuminate the frightened, worried eyes huddled in the corners. "They can't eat. We'll lose them all if something isn't done soon." They all shared the same sickly pallor and air of desperation. Her heart ached for them as they regarded her with fear and trepidation. Her status a healer would do nothing to comfort them, she realized. It just meant they would survive this trip to meet a fate many considered worse than death.

Sighing, she ventured deeper into the lower deck and crouched next to the sickest slave she saw, figuring the latter stages of the ailment would make him easier to diagnose than his marginally heartier brethren. The whites of his eyes were yellowed and dull and his skin pulled sadly away from his face in soft folds as though his own body was conspiring to escape this horrible Void he'd been sentenced to. He began to struggle, letting loose a weak and panicked screech and he tried to flail away when she touched her hands to his shackled wrists; but before she could even attempt a word to soothe him, Rajun's boots stomped to her side and the slaver delivered a sharp punch to the man's jaw. The man's wild vocalizations quieted to sorrowful, pitiful whimpers as she watched the blood pour from his mouth and tears leak from his eyes as a lone broken tooth tumbled from his lip and onto the filthy floor in a wave of scarlet saliva.

She turned to Rajun and snapped, "That isn't helping!" Rajun shrugged and backed away, raising his hands in mock surrender as she continued her examination. The slave was clearly malnourished, the sharp angles of his delicate bone-structure easily discernable along the lines of his ribs and collar. Focusing inward, she beseeched spirits to assist in her diagnosis until the nature of the illness was revealed to her, a small bug from the water that had set his weak stomach to violently turning. The illness was something that would afflict a healthy person for only a day or so… but combined with an inadequate maritime diet and, in the case of the slaves, abysmal living conditions it indeed could be fatal to those beneath the deck in this dark and futile pit.

The urge to obliterate this hole in a magnificent supernova was only barely repressed as she focused her energy, calling on the spirits of the Fade to aid her, and healed the man from the sickness that had stricken him. Clearly, if they had been better tended to, the virus would not have taken such a dramatic toll. In truth, she didn't doubt for a moment that Rajun's crew would survive the ailment and pulled through on their own now that they were once again landside. She rose from the slave, who looked at her with a mixture of gratitude and betrayal before subtly spitting more blood, this time upon her overlarge boots.

Rajun leaned closer to the slave to observe the clearing of his eyes and fortification of his body. "By the Maker, you did it! You really did it!" he gasped in strange childish wonder, so peculiar from a man like him in a place like this.

But his astonishment only irritated her further. She wanted to slap him for invoking the deity; the Maker clearly had no place in what was happening here. Instead, she held her hand rigidly at her side, subconsciously flexing her fingers to prevent her hand from curling into an angry fist. "It is very serious," she ground out in a voice very nearly not her own. "I'll need to treat everyone on the ship immediately- even the people who do not appear to be sick," she lied uneasily, knowing that her continued usefulness was likely the key to not ending up in the hull with the slaves. "You'll need to dump all your water reserves and replenish. Barrels, too."

"It's in the water?" he asked and let out a long line of cursing that, had she not known a few pirates in her time, would have set her to blushing.

She answered, "If it wasn't before, it is now and this," she waved her hand across the slaves' hovel, "this needs to change. I can heal them but this close to illness, they'll just get sick again. I'm astonished your boat isn't crawling with disease. If you want them to survive and fetch decent coin in Minrathous, they'll need to be at the very least fed and cleaned properly."

"Decent coin, eh?" Rajun's self-satisfied smirk shone like a demon's aura in the darkness. "Those profits are starting to look pretty good to you, are they?"

She started to reply that she was worried only about clearing her advance but stilled her tongue, moving instead to the next slave and working her magic over him. Rajun silently supervised her as she began tending to the mass of filthy bodies, the man unwilling to trust such a wildcard amongst his stock. Apart from the slaver's heavy gaze, Hawke felt another set of eyes boring into her- the second gaze sparking the Fade's alertness, causing it to instinctively swirl through her to ready her against potential attack. Stubbornly ignoring the eerie sensation of being so heavily scrutinized, she silently divined its direction as she continued healing the slaves with dogged efficiency.

When she'd treated roughly half the slaves, fatigue began to set in. She cursed the residual weakness that afflicted her- prior to her captivity under Maison, she could have gone twice as long without needing a potion or rest- and bid her overseer to find some lyrium potions. As soon as Rajun left, she turned her head to seek out her other observer. In the dark, all that was discernable was his squalid filth and brilliant fury. Abject hatred radiated from him in waves and she was for only a brief moment grateful that he was chained to the wall, lest he lunge for her throat with his teeth, feral as he looked.

With a quick glance to the stair to ensure Rajun was not immediately returning, she made her way over to the man and ducked before him. The moment she ran her hand over his chest to begin the healing, he cleared his throat and spit on her, the slick glob landing on the cheek her burn was branded into and sliding down to fall on her shirt. She pulled at her sleeve and gingerly blotted the slime from her face before silently commencing her healing once more, observing the other slaves watching her closely as she treated him.

This man that was important, she understood. He had to be their leader- the other slaves looked at him and gauged his reaction, likely the same way the mages had looked to her when she was under Gerard's control. Even as illness and captivity had begun to emaciate his physique, he was still a brawny man with muscles built from years of use, rock hard with only a soft miniscule layer above. Deep brown eyes yellowed at the edge regarded her with pure loathing but she supposed that should be natural, given the circumstances of their introduction. Her healing concluded she ducked before him, checking over her shoulder to see that they were not being observed.

Uttering her voice in the lowest tone she could, she asked, "What's your name?"

"Fuck you- that's my name," he spat quietly back at her.

"Funny," she quipped uneasily, "you look more like a Geoffrey." He growled at her and strained against his chains for a moment before he fell back again, his ire diminished by illness. "How did you get here?" she continued on, unimpressed by his bravado. He met her question with stony silence, glaring at her like she was the lowest form of scum in Thedas… and at the moment, she found it uncomfortably hard to disagree while he was in chains and she assisted his captors.

"I know this is hard to believe but I didn't really have a lot of options before I got on this ship," she murmured quietly.

He spat at her once more, this globule landing on Rajun's shirt- her immoral whore's uniform- before sneering, "Neither did we." She winced, realizing her choice of phrasing was beyond poor. Without another word, she moved to the next patient and then the next, working sluggishly until Rajun returned with the potions. No other slaves looked at her directly, just kept staring back at the angry man whose eyes continued to bore hatefully into her back.

A few terrible hours later, she'd completed the healing on the slaves and had returned to the upper levels of the ship to commence treating the crew. The ones who were actually afflicted were easy to fix. The others she simply cast a minor healing spell over, telling them that she was purging a great, bloodcurdling disease from their system. She could have done with some dramatic lighting and spooky sound effects but she made do with what she had to work with, the slavers' stupidity and fear. Having seen the conditions below, she understood with an even greater urgency the need to keep the gratitude of the gang as much as she hated herself for playing into it.

It took two days of solid healing before the ship was entirely purged of the bug that, as far as anyone was concerned, had threatened the very lives of every soul onboard. While they did not seem to have any affection for her, the crew certainly seemed glad that someone had saved them from their supposed mortal peril. Even Rajun had commented on how fortunate he was to have found Hawke before he'd become symptomatic, though it was unlikely the captain would have fallen ill at all.

Hawke had kept that tidbit of information to herself, hoping that the gratefulness would insulate her further from the obscenities and slurs mumbled under the breaths of the slaves and crew alike. The crew clearly did not like her, did not trust their new Healer or her uncertain magic, and the slaves- well, she supposed they had rather been looking forward to death and disliked having potential release from their fates taken so abruptly from them. She was on a ship filled with people who would string her up at the slightest provocation. Rajun had held to his promise, however, and warned that she was not to be trifled with.

Before he had the chance to depart in order to replace the water barrels, she cornered him and explained that while the immediate threat of disease had passed, a few precautions could prevent it from taking again. She gave an extensive shopping list to Rajun and he dutifully departed from her room to run his errands with a few selected members of the ship. They were still ashore nearly a week later, waiting for Rajun to procure her healing items and supplies before they set sail for Tevinter.

While waiting for the captain's return, she locked herself in her quarters, opening her door only when the ship's cook brought her something to eat. The rest of the slavers felt no compulsion to socialize with her and she was grateful. The room was substantially nicer than that which she'd occupied aboard her previous ship. Heavy bookshelves stuffed full to near bursting with text were anchored to the walls. Apparently her predecessor was a bit of a reader. It would help her pass the time on the way to Minrathous and feed the creativity that had seen her out of so many trials before… but that would be later, she hoped. So she took the time to enjoy her isolation from the horror she knew waited beyond her door and used her solitude to commence the long process of repairing her face, her bare feet padding over the floor as she finally drew the strength to creep toward the mirror, the single object she'd been avoiding.

Scars were always difficult to deal with, they'd fade naturally over time, but Gerard had made a good point before he'd branded her. A huge scar would make her much easier to identify. If Maison had been acting at the behest of the Grand Divine and word got out that Hawke bore such a unique and distinct mark upon her face, Circle Templars across Thedas would be able to identify her with minimal effort upon her first sighting. Her eyes assessed the strange mark in the mirror, it curled over her from her forehead to her cheek before arching away and back into her chin in a peculiar, scripted E. But the odd serif on her forehead looked improper for an E. With the sensation of a stone sinking into her stomach, she tilted her head to the side and revealed the brand to her anew.

She cursed loudly, openly yelling and heaving her heavy metal water pitcher violently against the wall, splattering fresh water across the floor. It was an M… for Mage, for Maison- the mark of the maladjusted malefactor who'd maimed her. Motherfucker. Unable to contain her rage, a wailing shriek tore from her lips and the demons screeched and ripped at the inside of her mind once more, using her anger as a toehold for their invasion.

She screamed aloud for the demons to quiet, begging them to shut up, clawing at her own ears in desperate hopes of silencing the maniacal shrieking that tore white hot fire through her blood. I'll make him suffer for you, one called hatefully into her head. Moaning, she heard another snarl, Even the Void can be purified with fire, just let me in. Another rasped, They'll not stop until they tear you down. And the final, painful insult, burning into her soul with the same intensity Maison had scorched her face- She died so you could whore around with slavers, the sneer hitting so close to home she wondered if that was an unspoken accusation she leveled against herself.

Then she heard it, the imaginary soft voice whispering into her mind, Breathe, Marian. And then the demons went quiet, her mind blissfully silent once more.

Deep breaths brought her back to herself as she clutched at the button in her pocket, the cold metal becoming a single extinguishing teardrop on the inferno of her fury- stabilizing her, soothing her, shielding her and steadying her mind back into peaceful stillness. She breathed like Hoppers told her to, diverting her attention to filling and emptying her lungs until the mindless madness passed and the oxygen left her lightheaded. Dwelling on the past would do her no good here. She was lost but for the fated buttoned-eye's constant gaze- watching her, judging her, keeping her safe from the fire within her, determined to keep her in control…

Because losing control meant that Maison had won… and she could not allow him to score that victory against her, not after Lydia had destroyed her own soul to see that Hawke survived- not after the others had died so senselessly.

She needed to focus, so she ripped her attention back to the heavy scab. The marking was as delicately ornate as it was extremely distinct and she suspected Gerard had it commissioned specifically for his own sickening purposes. It had to go or she at least had to minimize its appearance as much as possible. She stormed back to the mirror, and grit her teeth with grim determination. The delicate fingernail of her index finger slid beneath the black scab, painfully separating it from the burn it had formed to protect.

Water streamed down her face as she winced in pain and began the painful task of methodically uncovering the ugly wound, removing the stubborn bits of scab that refused to let go until the full extent of Maison's injury was unforgivably exposed to the harsh cold air. It stung, burned with remembered sensation of that hated iron pressed against her screaming face as she begged for her comrades' lives. Able to finally see the wound openly, it was clearer than daylight itself that Maison had been the monster and not she- a negligible consolation given the circumstances but a welcome one nevertheless. After a few bracing breaths, she forced her bare hand onto the raw open burn, unable to stifle her painful whimpers at the contact as she focused her energy on healing it.

For everything she hated about this vessel, she could at least be grateful for the ability to use magic openly. She stopped only to rest and eat, spending the better part of two days sitting before her mirror like some vain debutant, scrutinizing her complexion for flaws. Meticulously, she uncovered the brand and healed it over and over again until it remained as simply a ghost on her face, close to invisible unless she gave a flex to her facial muscles and it would reveal itself in only a dull outline, nearly unnoticeable unless someone was actively looking for it.

She wasn't entirely happy with the end result but had to admit it was a marked improvement over the wound's previous state and should grant her precious anonymity once more. Perhaps a new tattoo would be looming in her near future. As quickly as the notion came to her, she discarded the idea; facial tattoos had never really been her cup of tea and would have made her easily recognizable once more. After all, hair could be grown, cut and dyed, clothing could be changed and names could be assumed but she only had one face and it would behoove her to keep it as unremarkable as possible.

Just as the itch to escape Wycome became nearly unbearable, Rajun returned with fresh water barrels as well as the items from her shopping list- various herbs, reagents and flowers as well as a few less curative roots and minerals that could be used in poisons- she needed to keep her options open after all. The final item on her list had been a simple metal chain, which she hooked Hoppers' eye around and tucked safely beneath Rajun's tunic. The simple item brought peace when her mind went aflutter and Rajun had not questioned her actions, seeming to understand her reluctance as eagerly as he attempted to defy it.

She crafted several simple tinctures that would restore her patients to their full health. Even though the persistent ailment had been rather simply cured in its entirety she pretended that ill effects could resurface and warned Rajun once more of lingering aftereffects for the afflicted and the necessity of her continued care. Fortifying the slaves and slavers was easy once she had the supplies to aid them and within hours of their treatment, the ship was ready to sail.

The first week on the water was uneventful. Rajun's choice for her quarters ended up serving two purposes. The first, likely the captain's sole intent was to cloister and protect his healer from the rest of the crew. Only once she had awakened to the sound of picks being set upon her lock, she rose in time to see the door open and a drunk staggered in, eying her like a piece of meat. A quick word and summoning of her will sent the man soaring back into the hallway like a blazing ragdoll. Moments later, a half-nude Rajun flew from his room and laid on the man in a frenzy of kicks and punches before hauling the man to his feet and forcing his eyes to meet the mage's.

"I thought I made it clear the witch is off-limits," he snarled into the shaking man's ear. Wetness bloomed over the front of the slaver's trousers as he stuttered an affirmative and nodded emphatically. "Tell your friends," he finished with a final punch, the finishing blow breaking at least one of the drunkard's teeth, judging from the fragments he spat in a mist of blood. Rajun shoved the man back toward the main hull and returned to his room, sparing her not another glance. It seemed the captain was determined to keep his word to her, which made sense. If he had any intentions of keeping her onboard past Minrathous, it would behoove him to keep her at least somewhat happy.

The second benefit was so unexpected, Rajun couldn't have even considered it and Hawke hadn't discovered it herself until her second week afloat on the ocean while she was perusing the books in her quarters. The bookshelves bolted to the wall held a wide variety of texts strapped to them, from volumes on potion-making to trash worthy of Isabela- which she realized when she thumbed through a tome titled The Runemaster's Slot, foolishly thinking it to be a book about enchantment. She almost laughed when a particular passage leaped to her eyes. While she admittedly was no Runemaster, she was fairly certain that was an uncommon use of a fire rune and if it were, the application had to be much more complicated than that.

As ridiculous as some of the books were- she was afraid to even open Fanny and Trixie's Search for the Double Headed Dragon- she was grateful to have some means of entertainment within her quarters. It meant she had fewer reasons to leave this haven. She spent the first days of quiet exploring the bookshelves, playing a game of chance against herself while trying to divine the smut from the legitimate educational texts.

Circle Jerk? She didn't even have to open it to know that one. Lust in the Fade was, disappointingly, a rather enthralling set of instructions detailing various fortification tactics for resisting demons in the Fade, particularly Desire. Unlock Your Psychic Potential in 6 Easy Steps! Well, her limited knowledge of such tomes intuited that step one was something along the lines of "use money to purchase this book." She pegged Excavating the Dwarven Deep Roads as a textbook but the quickest of glances at the contents had her blushing like a virgin in a whorehouse.

Elements of Fire? She guessed primer but a quick skimming of the first page revealed the protagonist on her knees servicing the antagonist at the edge of an erupting volcano to… increase her understanding of fire. Sure. That made perfect sense. She snorted, if sucking at a man's prick at the base of a volcano would turn a mage into a fire master, then everyone would be doing it. Hawke could barely contain her laughter until her eyes fell over the words 'flaming man-geyser,' at which point she promptly lost it and clapped the book shut, promising herself she'd open it again if she ever needed a good laugh. The book was tucked into her pack, a Feastday present for Isabela if she had ever stumbled across one more perfect.

It was in the next book, Regarding Louis Xanderfeldt's Treaty on Manufactured Lyrium and its Practical Applications in Weaponsmithing, Welding and Enchantment, riveting as that sounded, that her dreadful luck began to finally change. She couldn't explain why she reached for it; it clearly was not smut or even something that looked remotely interesting. Perhaps that alone was why she pulled it from the shelf and thumbed casually through the first few pages until the book's true nature revealed itself to her somewhere around page twenty, where hundreds of pages were cut away to conceal a small, unmarked leather book.

Curious, she mused, and she gingerly lifted the text and flipped it open. Messy handwriting covered the pages front and back, unapologetically betraying the author's private thoughts. A journal, it must have belonged to the mage who stayed here before her. She took the journal to bed with her, propping herself upon her elbows and resting on her stomach while she read. Greedily, she consumed the book's secrets, drinking them in with her eyes as she slaked her thirst for knowledge about her mysterious predecessor and the ship she had found herself on.

His name had been Ark, an apostate who meandered his way into the slavers' midst with his brother, a rogue named Josephus, though she couldn't be sure if the kinship was called such through blood or mere extended cooperation, given their vastly differing names. Most of it was little more than day to day detailing of the ship's goings-on peppered with the occasional literary pining for some woman named Opal, likely the man's wife, who seemed to be the simultaneous recipient of his undying affection and endless loathing. The crew bitched bitterly about their shares, though the author had enough experience to know they'd get no better elsewhere.

5 Pluitanis

Harvey has contracted yet another case of the rash. We've been asea for nearly a month and no one else aboard is ill. I shudder to think about where he keeps getting it.

That entry had her laughing until tears threatened to take her. She and Anders had treated Isabela for so many cases of the rash that even the pirate had the grace to be embarrassed over it. Hawke joked that had it not been for having two competent healers constantly harrying themselves over her health and doting on the mischievous slattern's well being, Isabela's venereal diseases stood to rally together and create some kind of genital-shriveling superbug. That had earned the mage a solid smack on the back of her head, playfully administered by the pirate who knew the jest was made in fun and not malice. But if the woman she'd seen in Cosazure was any indicator, the pirate was beginning to slow down like perhaps her wild streak was drawing to a close, unlikely as that seemed.

16 Nubulis

Warren and Rajun are going at it about the damned books again. Rajun is so fucking protective over those things- it's all a numbers game to him. Now Warren's threatening to haul off and take his crew with him. Seems odd for those two to partner up in the first place, considering how much they can't stand each other. I asked around yesterday and apparently Warren owes Rajun something deep, more than a little money... Rajun knows something big, something to do with a slaver named Cassius, and he's using it to keep Warren in line. But from the sound of it, Warren's sick of being under Rajun's thumb.

Warren… that wasn't the man's first mention. He was the first mate aboard the vessel. It was unsurprising that Rajun would resort to blackmail but the mage's writing reaffirmed her desire to keep her true identity secret. But Rajun's strange obsession with his bookkeeping drew her attention. So far as she knew, he was the only slaver who kept meticulous records. She smirked and continued ahead, skimming the pages until she reached the final entry, written only a few weeks ago.

22 Ferventis

Warren is dead. Has been since we picked up that merchant/passenger ship outside Cosazure. Rajun replaced him with Victor without any sort of hesitation. After all the fighting between those two, I've got to say it's more than a little suspicious. The crew is uneasy and Stefan has all but accused Rajun of his brother's murder. If Rajun would kill his first mate, then none of us are safe.

I need to get off this damn boat. I'm getting to old for this shit. We're stopping in Highever next for a day or so to get some stuff to treat the slaves. Maybe I'll shove off and see if I can make it back to Redcliffe. Or maybe Denerim. I wonder is Amaye still hangs around The Pearl.

That final entry told Hawke more about her current situation than any amount of fraternizing with the crew would have done. This Warren fellow must have met a bad end or at least that seems to be what the author thought. If Stefan were still aboard, he could end up an unlikely ally against Rajun. Dealings that underhanded generally meant that there was a heavy level of mistrust, which could be exploited for an outsider's purpose.

But then what? She'd still be trapped on a ship of slavers and for everything she knew, her nautical know-how was limited to identifying which bucket she should throw up in. And Rajun at the very least had thus far stayed true to his word, something she wouldn't expect from this Stefan character; nor could she guarantee Rajun's grace would continue until he released her at port in Minrathous- if she cleared her cut, if he let her leave. She wouldn't put it past the man to forge the books to keep her on for a while longer and she could not risk being stuck onboard when they made port in Tevinter.

However, if the slaves below had come from a merchant vessel, perhaps they could be of some help. Remembering the man who had captivated the attention of the others below, she realized the man must have been a captain to command such authority. She wagered if she could get him to trust her then perhaps he or someone else below could cultivate the slaves into a more seafaring folk if they weren't already. That in itself was well beyond the simple task it sounded to be. They had no reason to trust her and she had no way to meet with them in anything resembling privacy to reveal her identity or her plan.

The cogs in her mind spun furiously as she pieced the future together. Exploiting the alleged division and rallying the slaves behind her... Maker, could she actually set these people free on her own? But she grit her teeth and plotted around her own self-doubt. If any actions she took stood any chance to free these slaves, she had to do it… or die trying.

---

Hawke looked out at the water and up to the slavers working the sails on this blasted ship. Looking out at the vast blue-green ocean, Hawke knew that without a crew behind her, she had just as much of a chance at swimming for shore as she had for manning the ship on her own- and she was a poor swimmer to start. The only way she could possibly command this ship was to have a willing crew beneath her. Unfortunately, no amount of persuasion or charm would likely convince the slavers to give up their lot and begin a new life on the straight and narrow- that much was painfully obvious over the bloodstained deck. The men wouldn't support her nor would they be convinced to renounce their wicked ways. She'd have to resort to more devious tactics.

She'd told Rajun to feed the slaves properly, as they were still recovering from their illness and likely wouldn't be fully recovered by the time they reached Minrathous unless they were adequately tended to. Rajun grumbled fiercely about the integrity of his profit margin but capitulated in the end, seeing her reason. She also insisted on visits to the slave hold to insure, she promised, that the cargo was adequately recovering. Everyone in the slave hold, however, met her with unadulterated hatred and quashed any hope for an uprising. Any attempts to converse covertly with the cargo were met with stony silence, not that she could blame them in the slightest. But it meant that any attempt to make conversation with their leader would have been better directed at the wall behind him.

She'd spent the past few weeks hesitantly wandering the ship as Minrathous drew ever damningly nearer, her impending arrival lingering over her like an omnipresent doom as she plotted and schemed. The slavers' dislike of her became more apparent with each appearance although she suspected her continued isolation would have only bred more contempt. Victor, the first mate, was utterly disinterested in whatever she could offer. So she deliberately made her presence known across the vessel, keeping quiet and to herself as she eavesdropped on the crew's conversations, listening closely for her intended target.

"Woman doesn't know a monkey paw from a bowline," grumbled a man named White during one such appearance at a volume that was clearly meant for her to hear. "If she didn't have magic and a twat…"

He was cut off by a rational tenor. "She saved our lives," answered Stefan, a strangely willowy yet broad-shouldered man whose head contained more brains than that of his unwitting companion. His facial structure and almost-shy mannerisms indicated that he was a half-elf human, destined to see glory only beneath the authority of another and barely a hair's breadth from sleeping with the slaves beneath the upper deck. "She's new, cut the skirt some slack."

"Stuck-up cunt is what she is," the first man retorted as he haphazardly threw a line too close to the mage. She jumped in only half-feigned shock as the rope thudded against her calf and backed quickly away from the conversation as Stefan approached her and ducked down to take the line, briefly skimming her ankle with the backs of his fingers.

Their eyes met for a brief moment and she diverted her gaze coyly, hoping to entice the man into conversation. The days of gambling with her fate paid off as he offered, "Forgive my bastard friend. His mother taught him not to talk to strangers."

"I'll wager your friend is far stranger than I," she responded easily and offered a gentle smile, even as her stomach turned at Stefan's eager grin. He was a slaver, she reminded herself- a handsome and dangerous slaver, but also a half-elf… and that heritage was ammunition she could use against him.

He stroked the rope absent-mindedly and replied, "We're not as strange as you'd think, serah. You're as strange to us as we are to you."

She cocked her head and gifted him with another smile, "I never said that being strange was a bad thing." Turning her head to his slender hands, she noted his eyes watching the direction of her gaze as he adjusted his grip and began caressing the rope within his grasp, the movements of his fingers becoming bolder as he fondled the line, displaying the talents of the weathered appendages for her seeming amusement.

Catching onto her heavy flirting, he scooted closer and murmured, "Perhaps we should talk about our peculiarities someplace more… private."

Jackpot.

"We should," she dared cloyingly, "but I've got a meeting with Rajun in a bit. Perhaps later." Her eyes deliberately lingered on his hands before she turned away to return to her quarters. She'd let his attraction simmer into jealousy. Let him think her attention was split between obligation and desire. Give him another reason to hate Rajun outside the possible murder of his so-called brother.

In fact, Rajun's meeting with her couldn't have been better timed, given the circumstances. She sauntered to his quarters, taking on a demure affectation only when in sight of his brutal bodyguards, whispering with a played and hated shyness that Rajun was expecting her; it benefited her for the slavers to believe her helpless, so she hammed it up at each and every opportunity, praying her enemies believed her to be some sort of shirking flower in the presence of the fervent bees surrounding her. Honestly, she only could paint a better a picture of feminine frailty if she'd ever learned to faint on cue, a talent her mother had developed in her noble youth to get her out of boring conversations but had failed to cultivate in her daughter. The guards stepped aside before she even finished speaking, so unthreatening did they find her.

Rajun alone rejected her performance of feebleness, having witnessed her razor-sharp mind and acerbic wit firsthand, but seemed to write off her acting as an attempt to win over the crew. He'd even gone so far as to comment that perhaps she'd be better off keeping the crew oblivious to her stubborn nature, agreeing that a delicate and demure woman was less likely to rile the slavers' desire for correction. She shuddered to think what that could mean, harboring some very dark suspicions.

Rajun had refused her demand for armor until the last leg of the trip, insisting repeatedly that her protection was his obligation and she needn't fear the anything aboard his ship. Now that she was daring to walk among them, his tone had changed. But whether his acquiescence to her request was based solely on their agreement, or to the proximity to Minrathous, or to some impending danger from his crew was anyone's guess. All that mattered was that he'd apparently decided that he owed her the armor he'd promised… and he intended to deliver.

Without a word, he gestured to the clothing upon his bed, black and laden with countless buckles and reinforced leather. Even from this distance, she could smell the faint aroma of whiskey on his person, cloying and faint but lingering there. She'd never seen the captain drunk before but had seen him sip at liquor fairly often. Rajun favored sobriety and had confessed to her that alcohol made him into what he called 'fighting drunk,' eager to use force to silence his opponents and get whatever he wanted. Silently, she stepped forward to claim the clothing but when she turned to leave with the bundle in her arms but he called for her to stay and turned his back dutifully as he bade her to don the garments.

Feeling ever so embarrassed, she meekly stripped behind Rajun's haunting stare- obedience being something she never would have offered someone like him…but it was part of the act to let him think he controlled her. Exposed as she was, Rajun never turned back to leer at her. She shrugged the armor onto her frame with only minor difficulty. The garments finally somewhat in place, she had the opportunity to criticize the fit. The clothing was slightly too large for her, the pants were slung too low over her hips. The tunic simultaneously revealed her ample chest and constricted it in a comfortingly supportive manner. The bracelets held above her wrists but the sleeves poofed uncomfortably between the cuff and her shoulders. Her robes had always been fitted by the tailors who had sold them; she realized she had always taken that for granted as she moved awkwardly within the clothing she'd bartered her soul for.

"Are you covered?" he asked casually, still infuriatingly facing the wall as though the fit of her clothing meant nothing to him.

She fiddled with a buckle on her sleeve, realizing the seemingly excessive fastenings were meant to customize the fit. "Somewhat," she answered bitterly as she shifted uneasily in the slaver's apparel, nearly every aspect, moral and physical, seeming distinctly uncomfortable in her new wardrobe.

He turned back and set upon her, grabbing her body and the clothing roughly. He cinched, fastened and clinched all the loose fabric within the buckles, fastening her into this hated clothing as though it had been crafted specifically for her. His method was so painstakingly and swiftly methodical she couldn't even truly struggle against it or even comprehend exactly what his busy hands were doing, just that they were everywhere. Even as she leaned away, he jerked her closer and ducked down to work the fastenings on her breeches, his warm breath touching against her most sensitive areas while he clinically worked his hands over her. For a moment, she thought she felt his lips caress her through the cloth but it was over so quickly, she couldn't even be sure if it was intentional or if it had even happened at all.

Then he clasped his lips over her through the pants and he pushed his hand over her thigh and up to the joining of her legs briefly, pressing his fingers against her sex. There was no mistaking that move. She retreated but her backward momentum propelled her onto his bed. Her hands came down instinctively, preparing to push his hot mouth and hated hands away from her. With a look bordering on mayhem, he moved over her and began once more fastening the final buckles on her clothing, capturing her with cloth while he rested between her thighs. Shock at this bizarre assault kept her from fighting, she could hardly determine exactly where it was happening. He moved his mouth to her belly and stroked his fingers over her confidently, running a finger under the tightness of the buckle on her thigh, before backing away so quickly it was as though the assault hadn't even happened.

But when she saw his eyes, she knew- knew his intent and the significance of the strange act that had just taken place. It had been Rajun's intent to dominate her and dominate her he had. She never thought the act of dressing could feel like a violation… but there it was. His eyes glared up at her, daring her to defy him as his mouth dipped lower once more, letting her smell his breath as he hovered over her like a raincloud. That set her mind right but before she could even strike out against him, he'd backed away, his ominous glower telling her that he had made his point.

"You think a suit of armor is going to keep you safe?" he muttered and eased his body closer, still keeping out of kicking range. "Remember- The only thing protecting you on this ship is me."

Killing him wasn't an option. Summoning her will, she hurled his body away but he artfully landed on his feet. "Is that what you told Warren?" she spit. The statement was foolhardy, displaying information that she clearly was not privy. But in that moment, her hatred for Rajun burned so fiercely, so painfully bright, that she'd have cut off her own nose if she thought it could spite him.

Rajun went suddenly pale and whispered menacingly, "What did you say?" He reaction told a story of things no one was meant to say… speaking of Warren's fate was a deep taboo apparently; and it was one that she'd carelessly broken. Rajun was off kilter at the mere mention of it. This was a weakness that needed to be exploited to its fullest advantage.

Her new assessment of the situation putting her solidly back into the advantage, she arched an eyebrow at his, sadistically delighting in his shock. "Did I stutter?"

"How do you know that name?" He snarled and his hand found a heavy book, hurling it in her direction haphazardly. Hawke took a moment to bask in utter satisfaction at the slaver's rapid unraveling as he took to pacing for only a moment before he turned his attention back to her.

It was refreshing to once more best a foe with her wit alone. She'd always been a cerebral sort of warrior, defeating her enemies with her sharp tongue as well as her mind, where all her true power resided. "I know he was your first mate and he ended up mysteriously dead," she replied nastily as she rose from his bed. "Seems a common occurrence for people who piss you off."

Rajun glared pure murder at her and averred, "First of all, Warren was a sadist and a pedophile that I let onto my ship against every ounce of good judgment I had. He wouldn't have looked twice at you unless you were a boy under ten."

"Convenient that he can't defend himself against such slander," she smirked.

"I didn't like him, Lydia, I made no secret of that, but I didn't make that shark have a go at him. I just happened to be the only one who saw it pull him off the rudder. I was as surprised as everyone else that it happened."

A shark? How utterly clichéd that Warren had met his end to one of the rabid wolves of the sea. She was actually pretty satisfied with his ending all things considered. Regardless, tact had its place here, so she laughed mirthlessly and said, "With all due respect, sharks are only surprising if they catch you on land. I would be surprised if, perchance, one attacked me while I was gardening."

"I didn't kill him," he snarled at her.

"I'd hardly expect you to admit to it if you had," she snapped back.

"I didn't kill Warren," he groaned in endless irritation. He stalked nearer and she readied her defense; Rajun really shouldn't have put her in decent armor before he tried this- a testament to his almost negligible intoxication. But she couldn't kill him, her rational mind told her, she was on a ship full of enemies who would slaughter her at the slightest provocation… and even if she succeeded in their defeat, she was still lost at sea. His firm, weathered hands grasped her shoulders and shook them infinitesimally in his emphasis as he murmured once more, "I did not kill him."

And she believed him even as she knocked away his fists and pushed him away once more. The sheets tangled over her feet as tripped for a moment, regaining her balance by leaning heavily against his headboard, the buckles he'd artfully fastened catching the fabric in her retreat. The deep rumbles of demons pounded into her mind but Hoppers stilled them for her. She was contemplating her next non-fatal defense when the door swung open and Victor poked his head within.

"Out!" Rajun yelled once but his advance was stymied, Victor's interruption destroying whatever mood the slaver thought he had set. "We're busy!"

"Angwe and Court are about to kill each other," Victor stated with a sort of bored nonchalance. "You need to take care of it."

Unwittingly wrapped in bed sheets, she attempted her best to act the unwilling victim, an appearance she felt to be nauseatingly easy given the situation. Rajun could have been ripped asunder with a mere thought… but that would have accomplished nothing so she kept her mind and hands still. Victor shot her an odd look as she put on her best expression of embarrassment as Rajun tugged her to her feet and began once more adjusting the various buckles and holsters that would keep her armor in place before he retreated from her and into the hull of the ship.

"You owe me," were Victor's last words before he spun and left to follow his captain… and he was right. She'd picked a bad fight and Victor had broken it up before either she or Rajun could push the battle of wills further.

She certainly did not like being in debt to another slaver.

She spent more time on deck after that, mostly to avoid spending ample time in proximity to Rajun as well as futilely hoping to endear more of the crew behind her in case the captain came after her once more. But it was an exercise in futility, the crew continued to hate her and Rajun ignored her entirely. Perhaps he was embarrassed, she certainly hoped so given his behavior. She focused her attention on Stefan, watching the half-elf's moves and flirting subtly until she was certain the man desired her.

Then, a week from Minrathous, she finally made her move, her killing blow in subterfuge- and an act she felt even Varric would be proud of, non-violent as he was. She was in the kitchen quarters, having seemingly worked up the nerve to take meals with the slavers. She sat several feet away from Stefan, picking at the rather unappetizing concoction the ship's cook was calling stew and wondering exactly what sort of meat had such an odd, gamey flavor while desperately hoping that she'd never actually find out.

"Nice armor, it certainly shows off your… attributes," leered one she knew to be called White.

"Well, I offered to wander about naked but Rajun insisted that I be clothed. He got them for me," she answered back with a smirk. She'd adjusted her persona in the guise of looking more comfortable amongst the crew, dropping a line or two of sarcasm or peppering a lewd joke into otherwise dull conversation. As a result, the crew's distaste was lessened from utter acrimony to mere dislike, though she was certain she could win them over if she had more time or even the remotest desire to gain their approval.

White sneered as he took a gaping bite of his gruel and muttered, "Did he make you work for it or is he just giving his prized mage presents now?"

"I think you know as well as I that Rajun isn't exactly the flowers and candy sort," she laughed in what she hoped sounded like guileless exuberance. "It came out of my five," she added with a deep mental smirk.

Had she been listening more carefully, she could have heard a pin drop. "Five what?" Victor asked with a brutal bite. "Percent? He's giving you five?"

"Oh, Maker. I meant three." She regarded the furious man and whimpered in feigned confusion before she noted the man's anger and hurriedly amended again, "I mean three. Out of my three." Her hands came together in a fidgeting gesture, rubbing over one another as though she were stressed while she rose to pace nervously, knowing her actions would scream anxiety when she delivered her mixture of truth and falsehoods.

"Five what?" Victor asked with a growl and stood to tower over her. "It came out of your five what?"

She opened her eyes wide as she regarded the very angry man and murmured, "Not five. Three. Percent- out of my three percent. Isn't that what we're all making?"

He leaned closer to her and snarled in her ear, "Then why did you say five?"

She deliberately looked down for a moment, hoping to convey more nerviness at Victor's fury and replied, "I don't know. Must have been a number stuck in my head, is all. I think about numbers a lot. Did you know there are ninety-four wood planks in the hallway leading to the lodgings on the upper deck?"

Ugh… she sounded so weak and womanly she wanted to slap herself, or better yet, go smoke a cigar and then punch the Arishok in the testicles. But judging from the looks she was getting from the men surrounding her, the act was working. She remained the center of attention as the men poured their resentment over her. Her perceived weakness only made it worse.

It was White who approached her, invading her personal space as his words poured his foul breath over her face. "Much as I like the scenery you provide around here, mage, your tits shouldn't be netting you more than the rest of us. Ark made the same as we and he went on raids."

"Perhaps Rajun has decided that keeping a mage is easier than finding one," she retorted, refusing to back away from the White. It would have been futile to even try, it would have sent her back against Victor.

A wicked sneer spread over the man's face as he stepped closer. "Is he fucking you?"

She snorted, watching White's eyes go dark as he scrutinized her. "I'd rather hump a meat cleaver."

He sneered, the expression exposing his maw to her. "That doesn't answer my question."

"Too bad," she replied, catching Stefan's head jerk in her vision's periphery.

"That's enough, White," Victor pushed a solid hand against the man's chest and pushed him away from the mage. Victor then looked at her disbelievingly, which had been her primary objective, and stormed away. After an embarrassed look shared with Stefan, she made her way back to her room, ignoring the small group of men huddled near Rajun's door. They were, she knew, listening to the two men within screaming at one another. Unfastening her lock, she hurried inside, poured herself two fingers of scotch and sat on the floor resting with her back against the wall she shared with the captain, gloating to herself at the sheer hatred she'd inspired these two men to sink to.

"It doesn't matter how much she thinks she's getting paid or how much I advance her because she's not getting off in Minrathous so I don't care if she thinks she's getting fifty percent!" Rajun's muffled voice came through the wall, confirming her suspicions that he had no intent of honoring their bargain, unholy as it was. "She doesn't know the books! She's staying until I tell her she can leave!"

"Seems like no one knows your books, Rajun," Victor growled back. "Why don't you hand them to me and we'll start doing math together?"

"You stay the fuck away from my books!" Some shuffling, perhaps Victor had attempted to bypass Rajun and get to the books directly. Even Hawke was getting curious as to exactly what exactly they contained after witnessing- in a fashion- the fierceness with which Rajun defended them.

Victor apparently felt the same way and replied. "They're the ship's books, Rajun. And I want to fucking see them!"

Rajun cursed some more and a dull thud against her back and the sound of wheezing told her that the argument had come to blows. Sighing, she examined her fingers, critically eying a ragged nail that had broken earlier in the day. No matter how careful she was, her nails just seemed to keep breaking. Perhaps it was the food on the ship. She never thought she'd actually look forward to getting into Minrathous. Didn't she have a nail file hiding around here somewhere?

"I'd put that dagger down unless you want it shoved up your arse," Victor warned with a dangerous snarl.

Ugh… her cuticles were atrocious, she thought as she retrieved her file and began artfully smoothing the rough nail down as the fight continued next door. Merrill had tutored her the finer details of nail grooming when she discovered Hawke's shameful habit of biting her nails. Merrill, blood mage and demon-dealer, simply cringed when she caught Hawke gnawing on a broken nail until the tip came free. The elf dedicated herself from then on as Hawke's personal manicurist, even finding a few shades of lacquer that she liked.

Those days with Merrill were always so much fun, and as wary as the blood mage made her, she was really the only person privy to the girly side of Hawke- the side of her that allowed the elf to paint flowers onto her toenails while they exchanged stories about Ferelden and the Dalish. Merrill was like a sister to Hawke, and it was the elf who shyly mused that she'd briefly been worried that the Champion was using the elf as a replacement for the sister she'd lost before they ever made it to Kirkwall; silencing any protest Hawke could have made by stating she knew it had been a silly thing to think but the rejection from her clan had left her orphaned as well and she rather liked their ragtag family, however or whyever it came to be. She suspected that was why she overlooked her flagrant use of blood magic. It was that innocent intuition, the hopeless flittering nature of her, like a butterfly or a bumblebee… and because Merrill reminded her so much of Bethany when she was younger.

Rajun's voice boomed through the wall once more. "That statue is an antique!"

More sounds of breaking glass and Victor replied, "It's garbage now!"

She rolled her eyes as Rajun and Victor duked it out for another fifteen minutes, pulling off her boots to shape her toenails. A stubborn bit of pink lingered at the tip of her big toe. Maybe she'd paint them red once they got to Minrathous… or maybe green with flowers. Should she do her hands to match? As more crashing and banging sounded from the battle only a few planks of wood behind her, Hawke considered all her options and decided she would go with polka dots, maybe black on red like a ladybug- that way she could keep her fingernails a simple red and they'd still match her feet.

Satisfied with that decision, she donned her boots once more just as Rajun's door slammed closed and Victor barked at everyone to get back to work. Dusk crept in through the tiny porthole that revealed the endless expanses of both sea and sky. The impending darkness set the water to an inky black and the air was blazoned with reds and orange with hints of stars at the deep purple edges. It was going to be a beautiful night, she was almost loath to do what would have to come next.

She donned her cloak, knowing it would offer little protection and made her way to the upper deck to where she knew Victor to be, where he always went after his fights with Rajun- to stare out at the water the ship had cut through, to gaze back at where they had just been. Her stomach sank so deeply she feared irrationally that she may trip over it as she stole along the weathered planks to the aft- the back, she was pretty sure that was aft- of the ship. This wasn't self-defense or imminent protection, what she planned here was nothing short of premeditated murder- regardless of how many lives she may save in the process.

She'd done this before, made these rounds alone on this deck, only once before when Victor was here. One of the deckhands was a routine patroller, circling the deck every hour without fail. A quick glance around confirmed that she and Victor were alone. She kept to the shadows, waiting for the patrol to arrive and then pass to leave them alone once more. This was her chance and if she botched this, the consequences would be dire if not immediately fatal. She darted forward, her footsteps alerting Victor to her presence but before he could say a word, she raised her hand and petrified him. His scream silenced before it could even tear from his throat, she deftly unhooked his key ring before she shoved his stone-entombed body over the guardrail and he hit the water with a loud plunk, sinking immediately into the churning waves.

The petrification would hold him until it was too late. He'd either drown before the spell released him or immediately after as he scrambled for the surface. Hawke hated slavers, hated slavery, hated Tevinter and boats and Maison and this senseless war… but none of that stopped the strange sensation of dread at her suddenly very uncertain future. With Victor in his watery grave, the events of the next few days were now solidly out of her hands. She could only sit back and pray that the mistrust of the crew would render Rajun into an instrument of his own destruction.

It was now or never, she told herself as she stole back into the ship, bumping into another slaver on her way to her quarters. Her actions tonight had either brought salvation to the slaves aboard this ship… or single-handedly murdered them all. She mentally listed her assets as she poured herself a liberal shot of scotch, ticking them off as she downed the glass in one go.

One overzealous batch of slavers- check.

One captive merchant crew- check.

One rigged powder keg… check.

She'd only been in her room a few hours, drinking more scotch when Rajun began shouting all hands on deck. Wary and slightly tipsy, she tripped along the hallway until she made it to the deck, taking up in line next to Stefan, who smirked when he noticed her slight intoxication. She grinned fearlessly at him and bumped her shoulder against his playfully when the ship hit a slight wave, completely ignoring Rajun's shouted questionings if all the crew was accounted for.

"Is this everyone?" Rajun shouted with a twinge of anxiety on his tongue as he stormed through the line and commanded everyone from the hull and their various states of slumber.

"Yeah, boss," someone answered. "There's no one else below. Just the cargo."

"Then where's Victor?" Rajun snarled back. She broke her gaze with Stefan while he searched the line for the dead first-mate and she pretended to do the same, knowing he would not be found standing among them. The slavers went noticeably stiff as they noticed the missing member of their ranks. The captain finally snarled hatefully, "Search the ship! See if he's passed out somewhere."

"He's not on the ship," Stefan growled to her as they moved out. She turned her attention back to him and saw his eyes were cold and scared and wide. "Son of a bitch tossed him overboard like he did Warren."

She gasped and touched her hand to his arm. "Rajun said Warren was killed by a shark, Stefan," she murmured beneath her breath.

His eyes softened and he moved closer to whisper in her ear. "So I heard. This is horseshit."

The shouts of another slaver brought Stefan and her to the edge of the ship where the dinghies were kept. From the line of five small boats, an ominous gap revealed a missing raft. Her heart plummeted as Rajun surveyed the scene, calling out that Victor must have abandoned ship. It meant only one thing as she fought the urge to reach up and clutch at her chest to muffle the rapid staccato of her pounding heart. It wasn't possible- she'd been so careful… but the evidence was there clear as daylight.

Perhaps winds from the night before had pulled the small vessel away from the ship. Maybe someone else took the boat or it was lost by simple mistake. But seeing it missing, Hawke knew she had to do the responsible thing and brace herself for the worst.

She'd been seen. And someone was covering for her.

Hawke's mind was in utter disarray for the duration of the next two days. She kept waiting for someone to come- for someone to make demands of her in exchange for silence. Her plan had failed in the worst possible way. But no one came. So until her mysterious benefactor revealed himself, she continued as though nothing had happened. Rajun replaced Victor with White, who openly called her both a witch and Rajun's whore in the mess hall.

She became reclusive once more after that, dining again exclusively in her quarters and leaving only to check on the wellbeing of the crew and cargo… slaves, she mentally corrected herself. Rajun's room remained mostly silent with only the sounds of pacing and random curses carrying through the thin wall. Paranoia gave the demons yet another toehold in her mind and she'd clutched at Hoppers' eye while she rested on her bed, focusing on her own strength to keep herself from the alluring temptation to just give in and let it all be over with. But she couldn't- couldn't let them all down- and that wasn't the woman she was. The scotch dulled her connection to the Fade, allowing her several hours of restless sleep before she had to rise to battle her mind once more. She wasn't one to usually self-medicate through alcohol but she wagered hazily, if it was good enough for Fenris then it was good enough for her.

The third morning was met with the sensation of Stefan jostling her shoulder. Blearily, she shot up still tangled in Rajun's shirt, her designated sleeping garment, as she instinctively backed away. The effects of the alcohol had worn off sometime during her sleep and she realized the room was dark, the sun blissfully absent from the window. It was the early hours of morning and he'd apparently dared to pick the lock on her door in order to see her.

"Get dressed and come on," he whispered to her. She gestured for him to turn around as she strapped herself into the outfit Rajun had procured for her, time and practice with the black buckles leaving her exposed for a blessedly brief amount of time. Noting the daggers resting on Stefan's back, she grabbed the simple rod Ark had left behind before departing on his final ill-fated landside trip. Rajun had denied her a proper weapon, stating it was his job to protect her- not a weapon's. The pathetic staff was only slightly better than nothing… but it was at the very least a club.

With a nod, Stefan led her through the bowels of the ship, winding through the hallways that had become familiar to her and avoiding the tricky dead-ends and doors that opened into nothingness until they arrived in one of the lower storerooms. Roughly a third of the crew occupied the small space and while she would hate to meet any of the men running this ship in a dark alley, the men before her comprised the top tier of that list.

She hadn't been accused of anything, and Stefan had not appeared urgent but that could mean any number of things. But certainly, if he suspected her of involvement in Victor's demise, she'd already be on her way to the slaves' hold. He grimaced for a moment before he shook his head, stating, "Someone told me they saw you running back to your room the other night, pale as a sheet and I cannot for the life of me imagine what must have been going through your head."

She had misjudged the situation, damn it all. Dozens of curses and excuses rolled through her mind before she stuttered, "I don't know what you mean," opting for ignorance lest she give away her hand before knowing exactly what Stefan was accusing her of. But the knot in her stomach eased slightly, apparently, no one had seen Victor's actual murder. This was an inquisition and not an execution… for the time being at least.

"The night Victor went missing," he clarified softly. "You were on deck, weren't you? Did you think no one would find out?"

Doing her best to look earnest, she insisted, "It wasn't me."

"You're lying to me, Lydia..." he trailed off for a moment before grasping her shoulders firmly, squeezing until she felt her bones shift beneath his fingers. The rather ironic usage of her pseudonym revealing more lies than even the slaver knew. His eyes were both earnest and furious. Dread nearly overtook her as she silently speculated what the future had in store for her. Would these men throw her below deck with the slaves or attempt to blackmail her into remaining on this ship and occupying their beds?

Attempting to swim to Minrathous was beginning to look more and more appealing. But she remained silent for a long time before she finally answered him. "I don't know what happened to Victor, Stefan," she replied slowly, praying her denial sounded convincing. "I went on deck but I felt sick so I came back down. I swear to you I didn't see anything."

He groaned and shook her gently, "You should have come to me immediately. You don't have to worry about Rajun, just tell me what you saw."

Wait, what? Her mouth snapped closed with a click of her teeth as she waited patiently for Stefan to continue, perfectly content to let the man spoon feed her whatever he wanted her to parrot back. An evil grin almost gave her away as she contemplated her next action and then diverted her eyes demurely and timidly murmured, "I didn't see anything," waiting for the slaver to supply whatever answer it was he sought from her.

"Lydia, please…" he whispered and took her chin in his hand, directing her gaze back to him. "Did you see Rajun ditch the life-raft?"

Oh, Maker, this couldn't have worked out better. Rajun had indeed become the instrument of his own destruction, inventing a method for Victor to leave by instead of facing further scrutiny for the mortality of his first mates. She barely repressed the urge to let out a long, wickedly delighted cackle. But that was a highly inappropriate reaction to the given circumstances, she knew. Instead she opened her eyes wide, conveying earnest shock that was only slightly exaggerated for effect, and softly exclaimed, "I didn't think anyone would believe me."

"I told you," another man growled. "I saw that son of a bitch dump the boat. Now do you believe me?"

"That's it," Stefan growled and pushed her face away roughly, having finished extracting the so-called truth from her. She sank back into the shadows as the enraged slaver continued. "This ends tonight. Who's with me?" The men surrounding her all gave quiet pledges of allegiance to Stefan. "Tonight it is. If they try stand against us, they will die. Get your weapons, the purge begins now!"

Shouts of bloodlust threatened to alert the rest of the ship to this group's activites but it seemed they cared no longer. Her first mission had been a success. She'd stirred a mutiny right under Rajun's nose and incited the angry men into a riot. Now, she just had to find a way to evade the group. Hawke brought her staff in front of her but Stefan clasped it and brought her hand down. "You don't need to be mixed up in this in case anything goes wrong. Stay here. I'll find you when this is over."

It was like the Maker himself was smiling down upon her personally. Then Stefan darted forward and kissed her roughly, running his fingers over her neck while he violated her mouth with his, before he jerked her head back, his fingers knitted into a painful grip in her hair. "Later," he murmured with another hard pull before he turned and retreated to begin the bloody battle he thought he'd started.

Oh… that was ominous. The only way that could have been more ominous was if he'd been wearing a black cape and handlebar mustache and had some thunder booming in the background. She was really glad she had no intention of letting the man have her or had harbored any real fondness for him. He perplexed her, a strange combination of hard and soft, a near perfect inversion of Fenris, whose gentle nature with her was tempered by an era of roughness, his lifetime of hardship and debasement forging him into a beautiful feathered blade, a weapon daunting to look at and terrifying to even consider in hands such as his… but one she knew could never hurt her.

Or so she'd thought. Sorrow pricked at the edge of her mind before she banished it back into the shadows where it belonged. There were far more important things to do than remain here and pine for her lost lover and, frankly, they were all things he would approve of.

The mutineers had begun climbing through the ship, demanding allegiance and slaughtering those who refused. This was her only shot to shift the tides in her favor and curry the riptide that would cast the slavers out to sea, where fate and circumstance could never rescue them. Instead of following or staying put as Stefan had ordered her, Hawke descended into the darkest hull of the ship, into the hateful pit in which the slaves were held captive, to the angry men and women who may just as soon rip her apart as listen to her. Fumbling slightly with Victor's key, she opened the iron bars to the jail and entered the human embodiment of the Void.

She made her way immediately to their leader, who immediately spouted, "And what the fuck…"

"I started a mutiny," she cut him off before he could start hurling insults at her again, dropping to her knees and releasing his hands. "If we fight together, we can take the ship. Otherwise, I'm dead and you're off to scenic Minrathous."

His eyes narrowed as he processed her words, "Who are you?" His breath… ugh… his breath was exactly what she imagined would belong to someone without the ability to properly clean his teeth for months, smelling both sweet and putrid, but she contained her urge to gag, instead backing away slightly as she regarded him not as a captor but as an equal.

She shook her head, not wanting his fellow slaves to know her name, that part of her identity still too tenuous to guarantee their alliance. "That doesn't matter now," she said. "If you help me take it, this ship is yours."

He smirked at her briefly and growled. "You don't need to promise me a ship to get me to kill these motherfuckers… but it helps." With a flex of his newly-freed wrists, the angry welts blazoned across them like the ones that adorned her own all those weeks ago, he barked to the others as he rose to his feet, "Women and children stay below! Anyone who can fight- follow us!"

With dire urgency, the former slave directed her toward the men who needed to be released first until she had an army of twenty or so ready to hear her commands… not nearly enough to take on the slavers as a unified whole but stood a chance of dispatching the factions bent on killing each other. The mutiny alone would provide the chaos they needed to have any chance to take the advantage. The last slave she released was a delicate looking man in his thirties, itching to fight despite his weakened nature, who was ordered by her new companion to release the others and find a haven to hold up in until the battle was won or lost.

She escorted the enslaved crew to the ship's armory, finally open to her through Victor's pilfered key and already half-depleted from the uprising slavers. They armed themselves best they could before they rushed up into the fray and Hawke found herself what was certainly Ark's staff- ironbark, gold and steel winding and penetrating almost beautifully over the mortal bone, glittering in the candlelight as she wielded it to test its fierceness, with a the tip sharpened into a single wicked point and two lateral crescent blades arching gracefully from the body. It was runed, enchanted for firey death and for healing, a perfect foil against itself and as much a contradiction as she herself.

And then the battle for this hated ship truly began. She and the captain bum rushed the first group of slavers they encountered, the men too busy fighting one another to recognize their wildcard third opponent until it was far too late. A few gargled their own blood in shock as they realized it was her hands that delivered their death. The remainder were dispatched with ruthless efficiency- a knife in the throat, the crook of a staff popping their spinal structure apart, frustrated hands beating the life out of bodies no longer able to fight. They pushed forward moving through bloodied and cramped halls until they became trapped in another galley, the slavers uniting against them as the fight raged on.

It seemed no sooner had she dispatched one foe than a dozen more inundated in to take his place but they held strong in their advance. Arrows flew through the room, thunking into wood and bone alike, and though she couldn't see their sources, she knew rogues were working their own style of brutal stealth magic. The projectiles skewered many of the foes around her. The captain took a place next to her as they pushed forward into the mess hall, and she raised her weapon with him, launching fireballs and healing spells with a brutal efficiency while he used the merely the force of his will, and two sharp daggers, to keep the attackers at a disadvantage.

A rock fist clapped her solidly on her side, the impact easily tossing her across the hall. Her armor, both physical and mystical, barely kept the blow from being fatal and she staggered back to her feet with her head reeling and her stomach churning. Two blood mages were hiding behind his fellow slavers, raising the bodies of his fallen brethren to keep the fight from ending. She tore at her will and commanded fire to rain down upon them, ignoring the bloody claws tearing at her while she summoned the embers. The captain was on her then, hacking the corpses away from her while she focused on her target. As quickly as he'd appeared, he was gone but she still heard the song of his blades whistling through the air.

She barriered herself quickly, letting the fire storm distract the blood mage while she swung her staff to keep her nearby attackers at a distance- the blades from the corseque styling rendering it into a rather delightful close-range weapon. She whirled upon a slaver that got too close, crunching one of the lateral blades deep into his eye cavity and watching the other pupil roll up into the lone intact socket. She yanked the metal from the bone, further decimating the man's face before swinging the bladed arc like a scythe across another's throat and resumed her concentrated attack against the blood mage without pause, trusting the slaves to dispense of the bandits behind her. Lightning arced from her hands but unfortunately missed its intended target, instead knocking out three injured slavers, who'd thrown themselves before the mage as human shields.

'Meat shields,' Fenris had called them once.

"I can't focus!" she called the warning, her mana dangerously drained from the brawl. Fortunately, this staff alone was a formidable weapon her hands. The apostate smashed the bladed crook of her weapon around a distracted slaver's neck and with a quick flex of her shoulder, decapitated the man with a sickening pop before twisting the outwardly delicate staff to bludgeon open another attacker's skull. Her eyes met briefly with the enslaved captain and he gave her a quick approving smile before he spun around and slammed his dagger into another man's suddenly opened skull, continuing to make himself a force to be reckoned with in spite of his weakened state.

A whistle cut through the air too near her face. She barely eked out a parry before the slaver brought the butt of his second blade down hard across her face. Her ears rang, her vision blackened, her head pounded. The eruption of pain was accompanied with a wet burst; the impact had broken skin and blood dripped into her eye. She dropped to the floor, thrusting out her hand to cast an ice spell just before her attacker could bring the blade down sharply over her exposed neck.

She hadn't been aiming for his groin but couldn't deny the man's panicked squeal almost made the searing pain to be worth it. The man's eyes turned to pure murder as he brought the blade up once more. It crashed down again, clanging against her staff when she blocked the killing blow. They held their positions for a moment, stalemated, but Hawke knew that the slaver had her on physical strength. Her vision half red from the blood flowing into her eye and down her face, she focused on her connection to the Fade, feeling the whirling energy flow through her. She pushed it outwards in a violent shove, the kinetic wave knocking her opponent back and into the brutal- and very fatal- arc of a slave's blade.

With the bodies surrounding them, it seemed the battle was done for the moment; this portion of the hull had been taken by the rebels. Judging from the sheer number of bodies, she suspected this would have been their largest battle. But there was far more ship to take and a quick look between herself and the captain had her hackles raised once more. This battle would only be over when the last slaver perished and every preceding skirmish only did to weaken their might. Even with her healing efforts, three men had perished and against such an insurmountable force it was a terrifying loss. If she failed to keep more of these men alive, they held no chance at taking The Bloodied Bandit.

She needn't speak these thoughts to the captain, who waited while she focused on her connection to the Fade and let it replenish her- he already knew. A started feminine screech from behind them told her that there were more slavers attempting to contain the uprising and without a word, she and the captain ran back to the slaves' hold to protect the helpless slaves as the others charged ever forward to unleash the fists of their righteous rage against the men who had degraded them into mere objects.

She and her new companion ran back through the hull, Hawke silently praying to intercept the remaining slavers before they hit the armory and could imprison the others once more. Hostages would be a game changer. They came up against a barricaded door, the safe room the slave must have beckoned the women and children to hide within. The sounds of struggles and crying sounded through the cracks in the door, which the slave turned rebel kicked brutally until it separated from the frame and flew open. Two slavers looked up in shock at Hawke and the captain, one snarling only the words, "You little bitch," before one of the slaves behind him clocked him solidly across the back of his head with some sort of musical instrument, which rang out a victorious twang once upon its first contact and then again when he collided it against the second foe, felling them both in a flurry of heavy wood and catgut.

"Go," he commanded and slung the weaponized instrument over his shoulder. "They won't take the armory so long as I'm here."

She and the captain exchanged a long look before she slowly asked, "Do you want, you know, an actual weapon?"

The man shot her a pearly white smile and twirled the instrument artfully in his hands before he replied, "They say music soothes the savage beast. I intend to test that theory."

"I'm not sure they meant by bludgeoning it over the head with instruments," her companion replied with ill-veiled skepticism. But the man displayed something she'd seen in every person she'd ever taken into her strange little family- passion, desire to set things right, the will to survive against the most hopeless of odds, and she knew the slaves would be safe so long as this man stood alive among them.

"Semantics," Hawke replied to the captain with a smile and gave a quick salute to the musician. "Go get them, tiger."

The captain caught a man cowering on his knees by the arm and directed him to a weapon. "Stay with them," he ordered another slave before adding in a low mutter, "and keep that one near the back."

With the slaves defended, they rose through the maze of the ship once more, easily overwhelming the few slavers they caught in the confusion. But the battle had been mostly won by the time they arrived, the slaves slaughtering their captors before Hawke even got a decent look at them. She caught a glimpse of Stefan, mouth agape in stony wrath as he laid still and dead on the wood planks- there was no telling exactly who had killed him but hoped with a sort of sick hatred that he knew what she'd done before he died. Fury, it seemed, had been enough to propel the captives through a majority of the ship and it was on the deck, beneath the moon with the sun just beginning its creep against the black horizon, staining its dark countenance with blood red just as the slaves had done to Rajun's precious ship, that she encountered the slaver captain for the final time.

"You have no idea how many people in Tevinter you've just pissed off, witch," he snarled at her as he rested prostrate on his knees, but she detected a bit of hurt, betrayal at her actions. Honestly, she couldn't have cared less for the slaver's feelings.

"People?" she scoffed and took his hated face into her hands, pressing her thumbs deeply into his cheeks before she dug her nails in, letting her hatred consume her until she felt Hoppers vibrate against her chest and order her to stop… she was better than senseless violence- it was a gateway, he said. She bit the anger back and released the man as Hoppers lulled the distant echo of demons beckoning her to take her rage further and she spat, "Love, I've been pissing off city-states and whole countries. I've pissed off entire religions. I'm playing at vexation on a level you cannot even comprehend, let alone think to match me on."

"Your men can come," the captain added darkly as he pressed a single blade against Rajun's angry twitching face. "We'll murder the fuck out of all of them."

But before Rajun could even think to respond, her companion shoved a dagger through the slaver's eye socket, twisting the blade so it ground audibly through the bone before he withdrew with a sickening squelch of blood and brain matter. Rajun laid cold and dead on the deck of The Bloodied Bandit and Hawke knew her newest mission had finally been accomplished.

Hesitantly, the other former slaves made their way onto to deck. What followed was the bloodiest party she'd ever been invited to. Alcohol was raided and wantonly consumed by the released men and women. Bodies were flung into the sea with cries of delight as various marine life came up to partake of the feeding frenzy their thanksgiving had brought. She minded the sharks as they decimated the corpses, watched the water bloom with red in the blossoming morning sun, observed the new day springing forth in a haze of bloodshed and open cries of relief. Hawke witnessed the former slaves celebrating a freedom many had never considered before while they ate and drank and defiled the corpses of their captors.

Then, she slept, creeping back into the quarters her old master had given her and slumbering unencumbered by fear and alcohol for the first time in days. When she finally awoke, it was dark once more as she staggered up to the main deck, still bafflingly tired and disbelieving of the enormous task she'd undertaken and somehow won. And he was there, the weird captain, that odd slave that captured the attention of his brethren, crouching to darn a sail with a needle in hand. He regarded her as she approached, rising to his feet as they silently scrutinized each other.

"What now, captain?" she asked playfully.

He shrugged and answered, "They killed the captain. I'm just the first mate."

"So can you sail this thing?" she replied with a low sense of dread, fearing they'd be adrift until another vessel discovered them. "I'm not entirely sure what a first mate even does. All my seafaring knowledge is based off them getting murdered on this ship and innuendo from a pirate I know."

"We need to get the masthead to full sail so we can get some speed," he suggested.

"That's what she said?" she offered back with a shrug.

He laughed, it was a rich and full sound unlike anything she'd heard in the past month and she found herself chuckling with it. He leaped elegantly down from the rig and gestured for her to follow away from the newly reinstated crew. They ended up in her quarters; it was natural she supposed, that he'd learned where she slept. He'd doubtless already mapped most of this ship before she even had a chance to fully rest. She opened the bottle of scotch that had seen her through the last few days, taking a deep drink before handing it off to her fellow.

"I can't believe how exhausted I am," he began. He took a long drink as well, paused, then took another, wincing and gasping as he finished. "So what motivated your little performance, mage?"

She busied herself with finding another bottle, whiskey this time, hidden in her nightstand before she replied, "I enjoy pissing off slavers." She winked as she took a seat at the small table that adorned her suite. "It's sort of a hobby of mine."

He took a seat next to her. "I am Braedon," he said softly. "I never told you before. Our crew was headed to Denerim before we were taken by those animals. They murdered anyone they thought was inconvenient." He took another hit from the bottle and looked up at her with honest brown eyes. "I'm sorry I spit on you. I thought you were one of them."

"An easy mistake," she offered back amicably as she studied his face, weathered from time and recent strife. He looked thinner, gaunter, than his frame seemed to fit. "Given the circumstances, I'd probably have done the same."

His eyes drew down to the bottle in his hands, almost like he was ashamed to meet her inquisitive look. "So who are you, Lydia? Who are you really?"

She ducked her own gaze then, wondering for a moment if she could trust the man before her with her true identity, before she realized he'd already placed an impossible trust within her the moment she'd promised his release and she could only repay him by doing the same. "My name is Marian Hawke," she finally replied as she met his curious stare. "Champion of Kirkwall and notorious apostate extraordinaire."

The label wrenched a startled gasp from him. Apparently, her name had told him fathoms about her that she'd not personally revealed. But instead of censure, instead of accusations, he looked on her with a sort of strange sadness. "You weren't kidding were you?" he asked. At her confused look, he clarified, "You said you didn't have a lot of choices when you got on this ship. You really didn't. What happened to you?"

"I'd rather not talk about it if it's all the same to you," she answered, pushing her hair away from her face.

He reached out and touched his fingers to her cheek over the faint scar of the heavy wound he'd witnessed in its full bloodied glory. Embarrassed, she turned her face away only to have his rough hand shift her back into his gaze. Anxiety struck her in a horrible fashion but Braedon held her chin firmly, unwilling to let her hide from him. She closed her eyes as he traced the light scar like he sought to erase it from her face, the intimate mapping leaving her hopelessly off-kilter while his touch soothed over the imaginary sensation of unrelenting burning.

Finally he released her and she pulled away, restraining her weaknesses back within herself and Braedon let her, seeming to accept it was a topic she had no desire to discuss. "I'll say this was my most promising option. It turned out better than I could have hoped for but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't prepared for it to go much worse."

"We are in your debt," he answered then reached out to touch her face again before thinking better of it, letting his hand settle on the jug once more. He drank from his bottle and she did the same from her own, letting the alcohol smooth over the rocks in the conversation.

Taking a deep breath, she powered onward. "I have a request and you're free to deny it. This is your ship and you can do whatever you wish. But I need you to take me into Minrathous."

"What?" he hissed angrily and rose from his seat, carrying the scotch with him as he set to pacing. "Minrathous? You want me to go into Minrathous after what happened to my ship- to my people?"

She took a deep breath but remained seated, not wanting to rile Braedon any further. "You'll need to restock somewhere in Tevinter. If not Minrathous, then drop me wherever you dock. This is your ship," she insisted once more. "Wherever you leave me is entirely up to you."

"Minrathous," he muttered. "You have to know they meant to sell us there. What if they're waiting? What if we dock only to be taken again?"

"Slaver vessels don't dock in the main port. Unbonded slavery is illegal in Tevinter and in theory they're quite against it… at least on paper." She saw his shoulders tense and release before they tensed up once more. He turned away, stalking to the porthole she'd observed so many dawns and dusks though before he finally turned his head to speak to her once more.

"And what of you?" he asked quietly, shifting his eyes down to hers once more. "How can you ask me to leave our savior in that Tevinter shithole?"

"Because I'm asking you to," she answered. "Not demanding, not commanding, just asking. And I'll be fine. And you have every right to say no. But if you won't, just drop me off as soon as you're comfortable and I'll be on my way."

But he spun back on her with a hissed, "No!" raising his hands like he meant to touch her but once again deciding against it and pulling his twitching hands to his side. "I can't," he growled painfully. "I won't leave you alone there."

She stood from her chair and strode carefully to the agitated man. "These people need you," she reminded him. "They won't make it out of these waters without a leader and like it or not, you're it."

"I'm not a leader, I'm a follower- that's what a first mate does," he groaned in no little frustration and set himself to pacing once more.

"You led those men from the bowels of this ship up to take their leashes from those bastard slavers' cold, dead hands," she reminded him as she stood before him to block his infuriating pacing. "It was you barking those commands, not me."

"With you," he whispered. "I did it with you."

He descended into the kiss before she really had a chance to consider it. His lips were rough and weathered, though he'd thankfully found some tooth powder to sanitize his mouth before using it so intimately on another. They hovered in that soft oral caress in a moment that seemed to span hours. She realized as the kiss lingered that they were both waiting for the other to push it further, which prompted her to pull away.

He looked abashedly at her and dropped his head, uttering only, "I'm sorry, I… I can't." The realization of the likely reason behind his hesitance hit Hawke only a moment too late. It wasn't attraction or misplaced affection that had him reaching out for her after such a brief acquaintance.

It was grief… so she asked, "What was her name?"

"Elyse," he replied simply, turning away as though he couldn't bear the sight of her.

"Was she your wife?"

"Not by Chantry standards," he answered, still avoiding her eyes as he contemplated the welts on his wrists. "She escaped from her parents in some bastard Ferelden settlement called Haven, ruled by some damned cult. She didn't believe in marriage, said the Maker and Andraste had no business in the lives of men. I never pushed her for it."

"What happened to her?" she questioned, dreading the answer she knew to be coming.

"They raped her. Then they murdered her. I was tied… I tried to save her," he responded in a flat monotone, like his vocal cords couldn't process the anguish his mind had clearly been set to. "I promised to keep her safe. I failed her."

She hugged him, wrapping her arms around his broad hips and tucked her head beneath his chin in comfort. He completed the gesture and buried his face in her hair as she freed a hand up to caress her pendant and thought of Lydia. "You avenged her," she murmured into the quiet room as she stroked the warm metal, speaking the words as much for him as she spoke them for herself. Those words brought more confusion over her mind than anything that had occurred since she'd boarded this ship.

"With you," he repeated into her hair. "I did it with you." She could feel his soft inhale in her ear before he tipped her chin up and settled his lips over hers.

He kissed her again; more determined this time as he maneuvered her back onto the bed. She drew him down over her and ran her fingers through his coarse hair. A soft breath escaped her as they began undressing each other, pulling away the armor they wore until only their smalls remained. He ground the ridge of his erection against her in clear intent and she moaned and clutched at his back as their tongues tangled together. It felt good… but it did not feel right.

He was wrong, the stubble on his chin scraped against her skin. His body was too bulky and he pressed against her at a different angle than what she expected. He released the clasps on her breast band and brought an overlarge hand up to tease the new skin while the other grasped at the skin of her back to clutch her nearer, his nails too long, his skin too smooth and flat, his hands too inelegant. The kisses were precision born of expertise, not the unpracticed passion that could draw her into a near frenzy with only an errant brush of teeth. It was too much, too soon, too fast, likely for both of them.

"Stop," she demanded in a whimper, and she pushed him away to roll from beneath him to the edge of the bed, sitting up to bury her head in one hand while the other clutched the sheet to conceal her nakedness as she tried to still her mind and determine if she was truly ready for this.

The bed shifted behind her and his naked chest pressed against her back, the spattering of hair ticking against her spine. Long moments of silence lingered between them before Braedon finally asked, "What was his name?"

"Fenris," she replied dully. "His name is Fenris."

His quick mind caught her use of the present tense so he pushed on, "What happened?"

He'd already bared his broken heart to her; it was only appropriate that she do the same. But what had happened, she wondered. How had they gone from those beautiful last days in Kirkwall to her on her back in bed with a man she barely knew? She massaged her temples in frustration and blinked the tears from her eyes, saying simply, "I don't know."

Braedon brought a weathered hand up to touch her chin and turned her back to him, easing her onto the bed again; but rather than push himself upon her, he clutched her closely against his body, his erection flagging against her and his breath going even as he gently pushed his thigh between hers to entangle their legs. He kissed her cheek and her neck almost innocently before he pressed his forehead to hers and stared into her eyes for only a moment before his eyelids slid closed and he sighed contentedly. They'd bared their souls and heartbreaks to each other- their nearly bare bodies felt far less intimate.

"I'll get you to Minrathous," he swore quietly, eyes still closed because he didn't need to see to know she heard. "I cannot promise anything farther but I will get you there. I swear it." She, too, let herself begin to drift away and relax in his arms, heady on the craven sensation of being held by another. They fell asleep in that sweet embrace, both understanding and accepting that they weren't in the arms of the ones they truly wanted but silently agreeing to pretend that they were as the Fade took them.

Two days later, the ship finally reached port and Hawke was finally satisfied with the circumstances that had led to her bizarre maritime journey and their final outcome. She stood on the deck with Braedon's hand slung casually about her waist as she rested her heavy head upon his solid shoulder, the easy affection between them lingering somewhere between familial kinship and uneasy attraction. They were both unready for anything further, their own pasts keeping them carefully guarded from one another, but they still sought each other in the night to cuddle away the horrible loneliness that afflicted them both; when they'd reached for their lovers and found them missing, they fell instead against each other and let the neediness of sexless touch comfort them until they rested once more.

Braedon had promised he would see her to Minrathous but agreed that he couldn't stay- not even for her. He had his crew to protect, hardened sailors as well as merchants, women and children. His experience with anything pertaining to Tevinter would be forever plagued by fear that he and his charges would be enslaved once more. It frightened and relieved her simultaneously that this strange man would not linger too near her. They were both of them damaged goods- he by murder and she by betrayal- and she knew any sort of relationship they could cultivate would be poisoned by their past, wilting like flowers some blundering gardener tried to protect from the bright sunlight.

When the ship finally docked, he eased his hand away from her and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, bidding her forward to leave him behind. With a sad smile, she pressed her lips against his chin and cupped his face before she thanked him for everything he'd done to help her.

"Another time, another place" were the final words he chose to murmur into her ear. "If we were different people, had different lives… I'd never let you go. Go fight your war, Marian, but know my blades and my blood are yours to command whenever you want them again."

And then she'd left, finding herself standing on the plank leading down into the most hated city in Thedas with none other than the man she'd seen wielding his lute as a weapon in the hull of that vile ship. His clothing was clean, face scrubbed and teeth polished, and his instrument shined from a recent polishing. They stood silently next to one another, content in the quiet for nearly a half hour before the man finally turned to her and spoke.

"Do you believe in fate, Lydia?" he asked casually as they waited for the harbormaster to hurriedly process the unexpected ship.

Her true identity lay with Braedon alone and to the former slaves she was simply Lydia. It felt appropriate to do good acts in her single given name, incomplete as it was. Against all reason and rationality, she still somehow believed it would curry favor for the mage's shattered soul with the Maker. Even as senseless as it seemed, she couldn't shake the desire to use her name, to make that broken woman into something synonymous with freedom and strength with the people she'd rescued from their shackles just as Lydia's sacrifice itself had saved her. Hoppers' eye rested peacefully against her bosom, assuring her that it was alright to honor Lydia in this outlandish manner.

She thought hard for a moment about the circumstances that brought her into this hateful hovel of a capital city… pondered all the good she'd done weighted against the terrible strife she'd endured. Then she finally replied, "I'm not sure what fate is… but I'll be damned if I said I don't seem to have the strangest luck."

"That's all fate is," he answered quietly. "A series of seemingly unconnected coincidences that come together for a grand twist."

She grinned and surveyed the tall, massive buildings reaching into the sky and dilapidated hovels buried into the rock beneath. "So why are you going into Tevinter? I thought your ship was headed to Ferelden," she asked.

"Fate brought me here in more ways than one," he answered easily, shifting his weight as though he was eager to set his feet onto solid land once more. "And I don't intend to fight it."

"Nor do I," she replied as she shared a smile with the musician. She contemplated this horrible metropolis and the secrets she suspected carried in her hopes of defeating Anders. And with a bark from the harbormaster, she delivered a quick nod to the man, descending the plank into Minrathous, walking proudly with the stranger until the road parted them- he taking one fork and the erstwhile apostate taking the other.

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AN's- Fuck! A month! Explanations! I need them!

And, pft, I've got them. I originally wrote this chapter as a Fenris chapter but trashed it when it got really boring- seriously super boring- then it got really silly. Silly like I found a reason to use the phrase "Hawke-lobster." Seriously, the chapter was entertaining but lacked any plot and didn't fit with anything I'd done so far. Fenris got a pet bear- which I may be turning into a once shot… so nobody take that.

Mega chapter was mega. This chapter was hard to write, especially since I wanted it to be one super-chapter instead of the three or four it wanted to be. And Braedon's character kept trying to read like a sad Zevran, of which I did not approve. Also- personal shit. Had an awesome charity job that took up a bunch of time. Fallout from death in the family. And found out I'm destined for the operating room once more, which really bummed me out.

In short, while I generally fall into the school of "Take no shit, make no excuses," I've found myself in a place with a bunch of shit and a lot of excuses. I beg patience, I promise I know how this story ends and will see it there.

As always, MASSIVE thanks to everyone who reads and everyone who reviews.