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.

9. Refugees

Nemesis
Chapter 9- Refugees

"Anders is an abomination your sister allowed to manifest into a psychotic maniac completely unchecked."
Sebastian Vael

Distantly, he heard screaming, but the racket existed in some place far from here. He couldn't even remember the hit, couldn't recollect the blow that ripped his mind from his own body, all white hair and slacked jaw. The image of an elven girl kissing his neck blasted through his brain. Somewhere else, he pinned another girl onto her bed. One had resulted in a sound of prudish shock, the other… she only released comments to him in the form of quarter-formed moans.

He shook his head once. Twice. Three times until the memory was banished back into the corners of his mind. Fenris' head was ringing; clanging like a thousand bells relentlessly and simultaneously struck against the delicate bones of his skull. The wretched sound spun the ground beneath him into topsy-turvy, throwing the dirt and sky to interchanging with one another as they swirled over and through themselves. He stumbled once more to his feet, finding stability against a tree. A dazed hand clutched the back of his head and felt wetness there. He pulled it forward and realized it was covered in the same dark fluid that dyed Marian's handkerchief a different shade of red.

He didn't feel any pain. But that fabric and his hand were soaked in scarlet. Blood. His head was bleeding. He couldn't recall being cut so the skin must have split from impact, not sharpness.

Before he could even process the carnage surrounding him, the sound of a panicked young voice cut through the haze of his muddled mind, "Run! Run! Run! Run! RUN!" the scream echoed through the noise of squelching fluid and rending flesh, each recitation of that single word sounding increasingly frantic.

Where were they? What was happening? Danarius… where was Danarius? The magister would be furious if he was left unprotected…

A lone hand jerked Fenris by his good arm and began dragging him away from the massacre he only just began to see. Pink and red, tubes and gore, organs and rent flesh covering the unassuming wood… what had happened here? Time felt like an emulsion he was suspended within. They could have been here for hours or for minutes, if they'd had the sense to run at all. There was simply no way to tell anymore. Voices, broken and ragged, rasping air in a wretched symphony played into his dumb ears.

Fenris wrenched his arm back, turning back towards the carnage as he heard another familiar throat shout, "We have to help them!"

Sebastian… He raised his unwounded arm to defend the prince… he would know where to find Danarius. Sebastian held a trembling arrow aimed at the abomination that somehow wasn't Anders. Run- Carver had told them to run. Somehow the archer had missed the boy's screams. He tried to repeat the words to Sebastian but they tumbled from his mouth little less than a garbled mess; the syllables dripped from his lips with waves of bloody saliva and made no sense to even his own sharp ears, regardless of his effort to enunciate them.

Sebastian glanced at him, his expression revealing an unrestrained panic as he darted to the elf and began pushing him once more from the mayhem. Regardless, Fenris turned back- Danarius had to be amongst the fray. The Templar Deacon hung prostrate from a tree, twitching and groaning, fastened there by some unknown force, organs and blood splayed out for a beast's feast. Sebastian's two guards were similarly displayed, nailed to one another in a final repose; both on their knees and embracing the other in a bastardized- and unholy- romance.

He heard the screech once more and dumbly turned his head toward it. Dumb knuckles clenched the sword in his hand for a brief moment… until a startling shock of pain returned the elf to himself. Carver's unrepentant blue eyes, duller than his sister's but still burning with the same righteousness, combined with Fenris' aching cheek left him with no need to speculate where that strike had originated.

The sharp pain brought Fenris back into the present world. His subdominant hand loosened his grip on the blade… and he saw the battlefield for what it was. Danarius was never here. His remaining Templar, Deacon, was dead, his head hung loosely from the tendons of his dead shoulders. Sebastian's men were likewise extinguished, though the wretch of Anders' ghost still toyed with their physical forms, propping and puppeting the corpses like dolls on strings, his attention indicated he was disinterested in the massacre as a whole. Decayed fingers twitched to command to bodies to writhe against one another.

Fenris felt an almost uncontrollable urge to vomit. These men of honor were reduced to blood slaves, controlled as lifeless marionettes at the impulse of an utter maniac.

"They're already dead," Carver snarled suddenly into his ear. "If you stay, you're next."

Sebastian, hopeful fool that he was, was already running back towards the manipulated screams. Fenris dared a quick look at Carver's face. For everything the boy was, he'd always been a poor liar- and apparently the last year hadn't seen a concentrated effort on his part to change that. Darting forward, he grabbed Sebastian's arm and ignored his indignant yawp- beginning the unenviable task of dragging the prince away from the horror they'd encountered.

He shouted with no regard to his volume directly into Sebastian's ear, "We have to go!"

"We can still help them!" Sebastian screamed and jerked himself nearer to the fray that would see them both destroyed.

Fenris released the rogue's arm and threw his good elbow at his regal face, silencing him quickly, "It's too late! We've lost this fight!"

The blow dazed the prince; he stumbled, looking about him as though he was unsure of his surroundings. "But we…" Sebastian groaned, giving a final glance to the massacre he'd led his army, to the men who'd died for their faith and took a clumsy step toward them once more.

With a final look back, Fenris growled, "We're leaving," and delivered his elbow twice more against Sebastian's face, silencing the prince for the remainder of their retreat. Surely a few elegant facial bones broke beneath his attack but Sebastian was blessedly unconscious and hefted complacently over the elf's aching shoulder, dropping his sword to focus on carrying his friend's weight.

Another nod to Carver saw them both tearing into the woods. Hopefully, Anders would continue occupying himself with ripping the last two members of their pathetic brigade asunder. Hector bounded beside them, throwing his great head into anything that rose in their path, be it blood slave or animal. Bile rose in the elf's throat and he swallowed it back down along with all the fear and rage and guilt that threatened to overtake him; they'd led those men to their deaths… and then abandoned them to fate's clutches.

Adrenaline carried Fenris far past his normal breaking point. The remembered sounds of choking and tearing flesh took him even farther, the noise rattling and echoing through his mind until they were well beyond Anders' reach. But after only the first few miles of running, Fenris was deeply regretting knocking out Sebastian. The man was heavy and his weight left the elf's gait uneven and clumsy. Carver huffed his impatience at the inconvenience but altered his speed to remain by Fenris' side without further complaint. It wasn't until Sebastian began to stir that Carver insisted on a break, bidding them to rest as he crouched near a thin stream.

"We should have enough distance now," the younger Hawke huffed, seeming to pay special attention to evening his breathing. Dropping to one knee, he began examining the contents of his small hip pouch before nodding once to himself. "Set him down, I need to look at your shoulder."

With the prince's stirrings and his injury, Fenris could do little more than awkwardly bumble the load until he caved to reason and looked to Carver. "Some assistance?" he asked flatly. The Templar shrugged and helped hoist Sebastian off his aching shoulder until he was resting peacefully like a blushing bride in Carver's gallant grip. Having the weight pulled from his back felt incredible but the pleasure was short lived when Carver gave a swift jerk of his shoulder and dropped the prince unceremoniously to the ground in a heap of silk and armor.

Before Fenris could get an indignant word in edgewise, Carver grumbled clinically, "Everything from the waist up comes off. We need to reset your shoulder before I can hope to do anything." The younger Hawke turned his back on him then, moving to the creek to rinse the dirt and blood from his hands before cupping them together and taking several long drinks of water.

Fenris, realizing he'd have better luck conversing with the various rocks and sticks around him, decided he should just be thankful that the fall was unlikely to add to any of Sebastian's injuries, pride notwithstanding. A quick glance at the prince confirmed he looked no worse for the tumble, which said frighteningly little considering what they'd just run from, and then Fenris began the painstaking task of stripping his armor. The outer layer was simple enough, several of the catches and clasps required only one hand to undo them, but the buckles and cinchers that fastened the armor to his body were a different story altogether. It was looking increasingly unlikely that Carver would offer any more than token assistance and Sebastian continued moaning on the ground as consciousness found him and the prince discovered it to be a most displeasing condition.

Carver crouched over the errant priest and began dabbing a poultice over the wounds on his face. The elf had not broken Sebastian's nose as severely as he'd feared and he seemed to have no difficulty with breathing. One of the Circle's healers would be able to deal with the break, possibly without leaving any evidence that it had ever happened.

A combination of teeth, nails, and sheer strength saw the elf stripped as Carver had commanded. Fenris braced his weight against his thigh as he slumped over and let the sunshine pour over his naked back. His long toes clutched into the dirt almost of their own volition, as if trying to remind him to remain grounded, and his back propped against the jagged bark of a nearby tree, the rough wood felt strange and welcome against both the lyrium and smooth skin between them. The light beckoned his attention and he turned his head up toward it, watching it as it filtered through the canopy, turning the leaves to a brilliant, unnatural green against the blue sky light.

It was a beautiful day and he was covered in blood- some of it belonging to the very men he'd sworn to Petra that he would protect. This day had made him either a liar or a failure. He was unsure which label stung worse.

"Bite," Carver took at advantage of his inattention to shove a small branch between his teeth and took the elf's limp arm into his hand. After steadying Fenris' body against the tree with his other, they exchanged a quick look and the elf slid his eyes closed just as he caught sight of the younger man gritting his teeth.

The agony was severe but bearable. Pained grunts escaped his mouth as Carver manipulated and forced his shoulder back into its socket. Instead of the pain, the elf focused on the sensation of his teeth cutting through the bark and scoring deep into the stick, fixated on the taste of dirt and the slightly sour flavor of the wood itself. When the inevitable pop and the single moment of bright, unshakable pain burst through his shoulder, the lyrium flared dangerously. Carver jerked bodily away from him, both fists raised and eyes glittering in hope of a challenge. A few deep breaths saw the lyrium restrained back into his flesh and Carver relaxed, looking somewhat disappointed at being denied the fight.

He removed the mangled stick from between his teeth and gave a reassuring nod to the other Templar before subtly spitting splinters of wood and bark from his mouth. With a wary glance, Carver stepped closer once more, this time pressing a rag doused in cold water and fragrant herbs onto his shoulder and pushing a vial of some manner of healing potion into his hand before he turned back to Sebastian.

Fenris clutched the medicine-soaked cloth against his shoulder, sighing as he felt the cool begin to penetrate the ache, before he contemplated the potion. While he'd never, ever admit it aloud, he much preferred Hawke's healing to potions. This preference did not extend to Anders' or Merrill's ministrations- the abomination and demoness were never to be trusted. But generally, potions were vague and indeterminate things whilst spellcasting held a much more precise, surgical sort of efficiency. As much as he distrusted mages in general, magic was undeniably more effective than downing vial after vial of the foul tasting tinctures that stood little chance to fully reinvigorate him. He'd elected to suffer countless trials before trusting Marian with his wellbeing… even if her skills were the result of Anders' training. Anything was better than the vile-tasting potions.

With a deep gulp of air, he uncorked the vial and tilted the glass against his lips. The potion streamed into his mouth, flooding it with the taste of sugar and bile and triggering his gag reflex slightly before he choked the liquid down. Ugh, he'd never adjust to the taste. Fortunately, the value of the concoction made itself readily apparent as Fenris felt his general fatigue lessen and the muscles over his shoulder warm as they began the only slightly expedited process of knitting back together. He sighed and tilted his head back toward the sunlight again before releasing the breath he'd been holding and brought his attention back to the fallen prince.

Sebastian moaned as Carver administered several tests to determine how much damage had been dealt. "Looks like the elf went easy on you. You're lucky," Carver grumbled and tilted another vial against Sebastian's lips, ignoring the other man's sputtering as he redirected his gaze to the elf. "Anders would have slaughtered you both. What the Blight were you thinking charging in there like that?"

"If I recall correctly, Carver, you were there, too," Sebastian groaned as he sat up, thin lines of an opaque, reddish fluid leaked from the corner of his mouth but he made no move to wipe them away, although with the blood and various poultices smeared across his face he likely didn't even notice.

The younger Hawke let out a bark of laughter completely devoid of humor. "You'll also recall my sole companion and I were rather busy not having our asses handed to us by the fanatics. We were observing. Maker, if we hadn't been scouting the camp you'd be as dead as the rest of the men you brought."

"Oh, Maker," the prince stated dumbly. Fenris watched his skin pale as the erstwhile priest brought his hands up to his face. "The men… we… we left them there."

Fenris made no move to comfort him, knowing full well the gesture would be unappreciated. Bowing his head instead, the silent prayer he recited for the deceased was all he felt he could offer- given his actions had led to their deaths.

"They weren't men so much as corpses. They just hadn't got around to dying completely yet," Carver answered, plopping down to the earth and stretching his long legs out with a satisfied groan. Before Fenris could snap at the younger man to exercise a little tact, he continued, "So I get word that my sister has bumped up her little vacation to Tevinter and then, lo and behold, I get not one but both of you idiots turning up like bolts from the blue. I might have known you'd be involved somehow." He shot a wry look at Fenris and added with a twinge of irritation, "And didn't she kill you?"

"Do I look dead?" Fenris asked before realizing his current condition probably wouldn't lend him the answer he expected. "Do not answer that," he added lamely.

That tore the prince from his self-loathing, prompting him to ask, "So you're in contact with your sister?"

"Of course I am, you dolt. We're running this rebellion. You may tell the Grand Divine to stick that in her pipe and smoke it," the boy taunted them haughtily with a victorious sneer, daring either Fenris or Sebastian to challenge his statement.

"I… I just want to understand what's happening here," Sebastian stuttered, clearly unused to this arrogant, self-assured version of the younger Hawke. "What was that back there? Was that… Anders?"

Carver leaned back on his hands and gifted a genuinely confused look between the pair of interlopers. "Marian didn't tell you? Didn't she meet with one of your Templars before she took off?"

Fenris ducked his head, feeling his ears go red and for a moment he found himself wishing the silence would gobble him up before he was forced to have this conversation yet again. "They didn't exactly talk," Sebastian instead answered for him, but not before leveling a long look at the former Knight-Captain.

Carver watched the moment pass between the two. Less than a minute passed before his eyes clouded with wrath and, unthwarted by Sebastian's pitiful attempt at diplomacy, leaped to his feet and stalked hurriedly toward the elf. "You son of a bitch," Carver growled, ripping his gauntlets off and dropping them to the ground. "You couldn't even wait to talk to her before you walked out this time?"

The first punch was easy enough to block… but he sorely lacked adequate defenses against skulls barreling into his own. It was simply a sort of attack that was rarely used since it often dealt serious damage not only to the target but to the attacker as well. He saw stars for a moment upon the collision before righting himself quickly into a proper battle stance. Well, that at least explained Marian's newfound love for head butting; she'd picked it up from her brother. He'd mused more than once that Marian had a hard head- apparently that particular trait was hereditary.

He raised his hands to Carver in surrender and quickly snapped, "I didn't leave. She did." He took a deep breath as the boy backed away seeming ready to hear him out. "I tried to catch her before she left for Tevinter but she had too great a lead."

Sebastian raised his weakened form between the two men and offered, "Fenris understands the consequences of his actions."

"Did you at least protect her?" Carver asked angrily. At Fenris' guilty glance, he barked, "Andraste's tits, man! Is she pregnant?"

The horrible question rose in Sebastian's eyes- hoping, praying that Carver's words were false as he asked, "Fenris… please tell me you didn't leave this to chance."

The silence that passed through that shallow grove could have occupied a small continent. Knowing the lack of probability that such a land formation would manifest simply for his reprieve, Fenris answered, "There is a possibility. It was unintentional."

Carver spun on Sebastian and spat once onto his expensive soft boots. "I will not believe for one minute that you even pretended to think this moron could keep his pants on," he sneered at the prince, seemingly too disgusted with the elf to even address his actions directly.

"Fenris didn't meet with your sister for the express purpose of sleeping with her," he answered with far less assurance than he'd had only months before.

"No, you sent him to fucking kill her, didn't you? Or did you think raping her would be enough?" Carver growled before lurching forward and slapping the archer with an open palm. When Fenris moved to retaliate, Sebastian held up his hand to stop him. Killing her, battling her, that had never been the plan; it was never their intention. She was to be recovered, captured alive to answer for her crimes. He waited for Sebastian to correct Hawke's furious brother.

The look Sebastian shot him had Fenris realizing with the clench of this throat that Sebastian had considered all the possibilities, had known the meeting could have left her dead- and regardless had left Marian's fate in Fenris' furious, impulsive hands. But raping her… he would never, could never, do that- not to her, not to anyone. Even Hadriana at her weakest, when that bitch had begged for her life and he'd torn out her vile black heart, had been unable to inspire even the notion of that particular brand of sadism from him… Sebastian must have known that, right?

Carver continued raging, "You had to at least acknowledge the potential. I'd expect this from typical bloody royalty but you were a Chantry brother. I thought the Chant meant something to you. Maker, Sebastian- you sent Fenris? You sent someone she couldn't even fight fairly? You hate her that much?"

Sebastian stuttered for a moment, inarticulate syllables peppered with the trill of his tongue, and Fenris knew with sickening clarity that Carver had been correct in his assessment. Sebastian had permitted Fenris to meet with Marian in the end because he'd known it would hurt her; because he'd hoped seeing him again would be a terrible ordeal. What bothered him now was the question of how far Sebastian thought the former slave could go? And had he himself known that prior to seeing her again, would he have gone along with it? He couldn't say for certain but those questions twisted something in his stomach. Now… now really wished he could be back in Starkhaven, cursing Petra's nosiness while she pestered him to talk about his feelings.

"I was hoping to shock her more than anything," Sebastian murmured finally to the ground, avoiding Carver's furious glare. "Fenris assured me that he would be fine, that he could remain objective. I did not care to consider your sister's view on the matter." He let out a deep breath and raised his eyes to meet Marian's brother. "It was not the most magnanimous thing I could have done but I did not realize how deeply the wounds ran for both of them. It was a mistake I would not have made if I'd known.

The prince gave a quick glance to Fenris before giving an apologetic nod to Carver and said, "Though in his defense, I frankly doubt your sister was unreceptive to Fenris' advances, they…"

"Don't," Fenris interjected, silencing any more words from Sebastian's mouth. Now that the deed was done and known, any attempt of defense or justification of his actions had to be carefully meted out or they would only serve to isolate them from Carver- and they needed an ally. Slandering his sister would obliterate that. Sebastian nodded his understanding as well, seeming to expect the elf's outburst. "I let impulse get the better of me. I will not defend my actions.

"But…" he squinched his eyes shut as he warily vetted his words, hating the need to say them nearly as much as he hated Carver's understandable scrutiny. "We fought but before we..." He huffed out another sigh, desperately censoring all the words he knew he couldn't say but may assuage her sibling's fears- her gasps and moans, her fingers buried in his hair and the muscles of her naked thighs twitching against his cheek, the way she pressed herself desperately against his mouth and hands, the whimpers when she was so close, her voice moaning, 'I want it'… all things that he most certainly should not discuss with her suddenly protective little brother- before he offered, "I told her she could go, Carver, and that I wouldn't chase her. I asked her… and she said yes."

Carver narrowed his eyes, regarding Fenris for a long moment before nodding his head. "That's something at least," Carver snarled before turning away, ignoring them both as he returned to the stream and scrubbed his face free of the remaining gore, imaginary as it was.

Fenris and Sebastian had a moment of near privacy but for the life of him, the warrior could not think of anything to say. His mind was reeling from everything he'd just heard. Had Petra known? Impossible, he immediately rejected the thought, Petra knew him better in some ways than even Marian had and never would have allowed it- never would have let one of her officers compromise himself so deeply. But she'd permitted it, allowed him to meet with her… she had to have known the possibility.

Maker, everyone had known but him.

"I'm sorry, Fenris," Sebastian whispered after long moments of quiet. "I should have trusted you."

Fenris ducked his head, trying to process everything he'd just heard. The prince had been devious, that much was obvious, but had not been entirely wrong in his deception. If he'd known he was sent to hurt her he couldn't say for certain that he wouldn't have gone to do it with gusto, if he would have even given her the chance to speak. "Perhaps you were right not to," he replied softly, letting the weight of guilt fall over his shoulders.

"You had a right to know," the archer told him firmly. "I should have told you my motivations."

"I cannot say my actions would have differed had I known. I need to think on this," he grumbled, choking his anger at Sebastian, at Marian, back into a dull roar. "But this discussion is not yet done. I'd like to meet on it again."

"When you are prepared to finish it, I will be here," Sebastian replied with an understanding nod.

"Fenris," Carver rose to interrupt the reverie after several more long gulps of water, "what's that on your shoulder?"

He craned his head to look, missing as Carver smoothly withdrew a small blade and quickly sliced a small cut into his exposed neck. With an inelegant squawk, the elf slapped his hand over the wound before a moment later saw the world spinning violently around him. The blood left his face and he felt a vague pain in his knees when he collided with the ground, shaking and furiously wide-eyed before he pitched face-first into the dirt. Try as he might, his body was completely unresponsive to his commands to fight, to move, to flex even a muscle of his own volition.

Sebastian was over him in an instant- flipping him over and touching his fingers against his pulse to check the elf's vitality. Even aiming his eyes at the rogue required a debilitating amount of dedication; yet the vision of him still kept coming in and out of focus. All that was awry was reflected in the sovereign's wild, irritated eyes and an indignant set to his jaw. "What did you do, Carver?" the archer demanded.

"I poisoned him. I figured that much was obvious," the other Templar shrugged indifferently before turning to tend to his pack, leaving Sebastian with a helpless heap of body and armor. "I'd rather have done it to you but you've recently suffered a head wound. And the elf was having difficulty carrying you with his injury. So, you're welcome. I am being incredibly thoughtful, all things considered."

"Why?" He growled, "What if Anders finds us?"

"I have a better question for you, Sebastian," Carver responded nastily. "Who do you think you're calling 'us'? Your business is with my sister and she's long gone. My money is on her staying in Minrathous until your elf's bastard is born."

"You know as well as I that your sister wouldn't rear a child in Tevinter," he retorted. "Why is she in Minrathous?"

"If you know my sister so well, then why don't you tell me," Carver taunted before letting his tone even out and shift into a cool professional cadence. "We need to move. We're traveling a day east before we make way to the camp."

"Why aren't we moving directly to the camp?"

Carver's voice was absent for so long, Fenris suspected the young man had no intention of answering. Then, so softly his delicate ears could scarcely detect, he heard Carver rasp, "Because we can't let Anders find us."

"And how, exactly, do you expect us to get to this camp of yours with Fenris incapacitated?"

"I expect you to carry him. If you have to be standing behind me, I want your hands occupied. You…" the Templar growled under his breath. Fenris felt bootsteps approach and saw the two men standing toe to toe, then heard Carver snarl, "You are nothing more than a turncoat traitor. If you cannot understand that, then perhaps I should have left you with Anders. Surely, he could have found a better use for you than permitting your whining about how terribly unfair I'm being towards the men who tried to murder my family."

Fenris had little doubt that Carver had chosen those particular words to strike deliberately close to home for Sebastian, who stuttered, "I meant no…"

"Then shut your mouth, pick up your elf, and start walking," the younger Templar uttered in a stone-cold command before his footsteps moved away.

There wasn't much dignity to be found in being lifted like a ragdoll and slung over Sebastian's broad shoulders but it wasn't like he could exactly say anything about it. Even if he could, it was even more unlikely that Carver would accommodate any requests the elf could have made. His mind was becoming sluggish and rather than struggle against it, Fenris chose instead to give in. The battle and flight had taken a toll on his body and he could use the rest.

He also suspected that whatever he was going to find on the other side of unconsciousness was going to be at least somewhat unpleasant.

---

His hands were buried in her hair, mouth invading hers, body trapping hers against the cold stone wall. She wasn't complaining, rather, she was whimpering as the strong hand gripping her posterior assisted in rocking harder against his thigh- both of them completely uncaring that anyone could walk into the foyer and catch them fastened to each other like they were in a brothel and not a noblewoman's home. The evening of kisses, wine, and teasing had rendered her substantially less modest than usual. Her fingers tangled in his hair before softly stroking the line of his ear with her thumb. He groaned and pinned her hands to the wall beside her head, anything to stop his fingers from pushing her dressing gown off her shoulders and taking her there in the vestibule of her home. The need was nearly overwhelming and her breath gasping into his mouth and hips thrusting against his body as she came closer, ever closer to her goal was not helping the matter in the slightest bit.

Deep breaths. Tevinter, Hadriana, snow, the scent of stale alcohol at the Hanged Man, her apprenticeship with Anders, it saw his desire properly, if unhappily, restrained. With a final groan, he pulled away and unevenly whispered, "Goodnight, Marian."

"You could stay," she panted back with a guilty smile, leaning forward to capture his lower lip in a brief kiss.

He gave in to it for a moment and let his mouth whisper over hers. "I am not made of stone, sparrow," he rasped against her and tightened his fingers over hers.

She wriggled one hand out of his grasp and reached down to caress the nearly painful erection she'd provoked from him with the backs of her fingers. He choked for a moment, desperately trying to recall why he wasn't supposed to stay and remembering the instant she smiled, "You could have fooled me. Come lie with me. Just sleeping."

The path to temptation was fraught with little compromises like that. Just a kiss, just a touch, just a taste, just a minute more, just a little more, just once more… he shook his head as his thoughts started spiraling southward again and groaned, "I thought we agreed to take it slow?"

She fastened her lips to his and let her tongue slide sensuously over his before she murmured, "It could be slow," and loved his mouth again.

This mage was going to be the death of him, he just knew it. He grasped her marauding hand and pinned it back against the wall before he kissed her again, chastely this time; until he heard her release an upset sigh and accept that he wasn't going to cave to her charms- not tonight in any case and not for a lack of spectacular effort on both their parts. He was still more than a little worried about how intimacy could affect his mind but, more importantly, after his cowardice of the last three years he felt he owed Marian something resembling a proper courtship- or at the very least the closest to one a jaded ex-slave could offer.

She very, very grudgingly accepted that but made it clear on occasions like this one that she was also very, very, very, very frustrated. As if to accent said frustration, she took the opportunity to give his neck just a hint of a soft bite, the edge of it hovering safely away from pain, before pressing a long kiss over it. The message was clear, 'If I must suffer, so shall you.' A low groan escaped him as he craned his neck to welcome her touch. It had been three days, at this rate he'd be astonished if he lasted a week.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" she asked quietly as she pulled away.

He smirked at her and touched her forehead with his lips. "Tomorrow," he promised.

With that, he tore himself away and strode through the door exiting her home both immensely pleased and insanely unsatisfied. Before he made it even three steps from her home, the small hairs on his neck stood up on end. Years of running and paranoia had left him with a very keen sense of solitude… and he was definitely not alone. Looking up, he was confronted by another form lurking in the shadows. He only saw the man's outline but could easily make out the telltale signs of feathered pauldrons and a large staff…

…The abomination. No one else carried themselves with that much self-righteousness. Stupid Anders.

He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the shadows where the coward hid. It was a delicious irony that after having nearly six years of unfettered access to her as his protégé, Anders now slunk in the shadows while Fenris was free to enter her abode at his slightest whim. He'd been terrified during the last three years that Anders would take advantage of his proximity and authority, would shape her into a lover and disciple warped by his twisted logic, would seduce her and ruin her.

He knew the lack of such an event could only mean one of two things- that either Anders understood that engaging with Marian would lead to her destruction and defied his affections or, and this was his suspicion, Hawke resisted despite the abomination's clear and desperate love for her. With a wry, self-satisfied grin, he leaned casually against the door to her estate, making it clear in every way that the abomination would not see Hawke without going through the elf and that he was amply prepared to wait all night.

The figure moved forward and Anders revealed himself, pale and thin even beneath the dim lights. "I need to speak with Hawke," he said quietly, staying half-hidden by the shadows.

Fenris felt his smirk deepen, rather liking Anders' disadvantage, and replied, "She's gone to bed. You can see her at the Hanged Man tomorrow."

Anders stepped forward, exposing himself to the light and wincing slightly against it. His skin looked waxy and sick, like he hadn't slept in days. Fenris struggled to remember the last time he'd seen the mage… was it a week ago? Two? The abomination cut off his line of thought with a terse, "Look, it's important. You must let me see her. I need to see her."

"I find myself rather unconcerned with your needs, abomination," Fenris sneered, so thoroughly satisfied at finally having the opportunity to deny the mage access to Hawke in the same way Anders had denied the elf countless times before.

"She's exhausted," the abomination had so many times apologized for her absence during the weekly rounds of Wicked Grace at the Hanged Man. He always spoke with a tilt of his head that meant to imply so much more.

But more often than not, it was the quiet, private words, "I may have worn her out," delivered in a hateful whisper directly into the elf's ear with a pointed, triumphant stare that typically saw the elf later upending the furniture in his home while he cursed himself for every kind of fool.

Now those pitiful displays made him want to laugh. Marian was his in every undeniable way the abomination couldn't claim. She'd waited. She wanted. That displayed her affection more than words. He'd waited as well. He hated and stroked himself, worshipped her through his imagination. For three years, they'd behaved. So many times he'd wondered, if he peeked into her window, if he touched her- what would he see, who would censure him?

Anders' strange, choking sound brought Fenris back to the present. Anders stared at him unreservedly but behind the honey-brown irises the elf recognized, he could see flickers of blue shadows. It provoked memories of the plays he'd attended in Tevinter, standing behind Danarius' box seat as the activities played out below him. There was one he recalled where a man stood at the front of the stage and shouted his lamentations for his slain sons before the stage mystically became red, and his black silhouette screamed as the mother of his children screeched across the sky.

The man had been encompassed by the red light but here in the present, his adversary was slain with blue. He had no idea why Anders provoked that particular scene but the feeling certainly didn't bode well.

Now that he examined it he could hear a deeper, second quality to the abomination's voice. "You must let me see her," the monster demanded again.

"She's sleeping," the elf addressed Anders as he would a petulant child. "Go home."

Anders began pacing, frantically moving back and forth until Fenris felt an even greater urge to slap him, if that was even possible. "It's about…" he started, "it's about something she helped me with. She needs to hear this, Fenris."

That perked his ears; Marian had made no mention of assisting the wretch before him. "What did she help you with?" he growled curiously.

In a flash, Anders' desperation morphed into familiar hatred and he smiled, "Hmmm… so it appears she doesn't tell you everything." Anders smirked and started to depart, realizing he'd not see Marian this evening, before he stopped and sneered over his shoulder, "You just don't get it, do you? Even now, you don't get any of it."

"Make your point then get out of my sight," his eyes narrowed.

"You were abused in Tevinter," the monster growled unpleasantly. "I've made far more of an effort to understand that than you've made to understand the plight of mages. I know that experience must have…"

Fenris cut him off with a snarl, "It wasn't an experience, mage. It was my life."

"Running and being hunted, held captive," Anders replied with a strange tilt to his voice. "Yes, I'm familiar with that sort of life. I've been chased across the Free Marches. You're right about one thing, however. The Circle isn't slavery- it's a prison. But Hawke and I? Our only crime was being born."

Fenris shook his head in rage… of course Anders would try to manipulate the slave's past to make him more sympathetic to his cause. It wouldn't work- his convictions would see him through. But the wretched mage continued even as the elf spat, "The Circle exists to protect you, Anders. This land understands the danger you pose to yourself and others."

Ander's eyes narrowed hatefully. "And you'd see her thrown in Kirkwall's Circle? Locked away from you and from everyone she cares about?" Anders gestured back to the estate.

"Hawke's proven that she can live outside the Circle," Fenris answered. It was true, she'd defied temptations beyond his mortal grasp. She'd battled foes beyond his protection and the plucky mage seemed to win each and every time.

Anders groaned back, "Because she had guidance from her father and the support of her family and wasn't locked away and terrorized!"

"Look at the life Merrill has made for herself with only guidance and freedom," Fenris said in a simple, vicious breath. "And you've already proven why you belong in the Circle. You proved it the moment you decided to harbor that demon."

"I took on a spirit of Justice to help my brothers and sisters escape the Circle!"

Without Marian there to mediate the debate, Fenris found all the hateful words he'd never utter to her spewing forth, "You took on a demon because you were afraid of being sent back to it. And in your weakness you validated your captivity, proved to the world that you belong there, that you needed to be protected from yourself. So don't lecture me on the importance of freedom and then whine like a little mabari bitch about the ways you've abused it."

And Anders was similarly unencumbered as he spat, "You'd sentence her there with the rest of us, knowing what happened with Alrik could happen again and could happen to her." Anders' voice dropped low as he switched tactics. "What do you think will happen to her when she falls out of Meredith's good graces?"

"That's a low blow, mage," the elf growled.

"She'll be pinned down, unable to defend herself, and they'll rape her," Anders brutally declared. "They'll wear their helmets so she won't even see their faces. She'll wonder, for the rest of her life, which of her protectors did that to her."

"Shut your mouth, monster, or I'll do it for you," Fenris snarled.

"And they won't stop at once. No, Fenris, they'll haunt her. Every time she's alone, they'll come for her… again and again and again. And she'll never know if the man standing next to her was one of the men who sodomized her until she couldn't even stand."

"I said shut your mouth!" the elf's hand shot out and grabbed Anders by the throat.

Something glittered in Anders' eyes then and a small victorious smile crept across his face. The anger at the thought of someone, anyone, harming Hawke dissipated- replaced by a menacing shadow that coursed along his spinal column. Fenris felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and gooseflesh run over his arms. He couldn't pinpoint the change in the air, only knew that it chilled his very blood. He stumbled backwards, releasing his grip on the mage as he reeled away. Anders continued staring calmly while Fenris fought the urge to get Hawke and run- as far and as fast as he could.

"They'll never let us be free," Anders said with that strange expression and he smiled as he shook his head. "Not her. Not me. Not any of us."

Anders gave Fenris one long, last look before he let out a bitter laugh and turned to leave. It wasn't until minutes later that Fenris realized his hands were shaking and his breathing was labored. He dragged his hands through his hair, trying to understand what had just happened. The thought of Marian being violated was particularly painful but that wasn't what had gotten to him.

Why had Anders of all people rattled him this badly?

He returned to his home. Taking a few bracing breaths, he poured himself a glass of water and splashed some on his face before downing the rest. Stripping off his armor, he crawled into bed, imagining his body curling around hers. What had she helped Anders with? Why hadn't she mentioned it to him? Logic said it was likely something that happened before their reconciliation but he still felt a stab of betrayal and wondered if she'd felt compelled to hide this from him.

Given this last encounter, he could understand a little of it. Fear wasn't an emotion he typically succumbed to but the look in Anders' eyes carved out a good section of his bravado.

The look on Anders' face; it felt familiar to him somehow. Unbidden, his memory fired and he saw Danarius reverently caressing the mutilated body of a small elven boy, who twitched and choked while his spirit refused to just die. He saw Hadriana mewling like a whore while his master ran a silverite blade over her naked and bloody body. He saw Bartrand, pining and wailing for the imaginary song of the damned lyrium idol. And with a hard twinge in his head, he saw himself standing in front of a mirror, raven-haired and unbranded, bruised and bloody with a brutal sneer on his face. All of them carried the same indefinable expression in their eyes, some mix of determination and pleasure and…

… and what?

More importantly, what was a memory of him before the ritual doing evoked alongside those of Danarius, Hadriana and Bartrand? The expressions were all the same and it wrenched something from his mind that he suspected would have been much better off forgotten. Why had his memory reclaimed that image?

Maker, what had he done?

He realized rather abruptly that he'd left Marian alone and the idea of Anders getting near her filled him with bright panic. With a low curse, he untangled himself from his sheets and threw on a simple tunic and a pair of pants. The Chantry bells announced the far-too-early morning when he left the mansion and ran through the empty streets back to the Amell estate. The door would be locked and Bodahn would be asleep, so he didn't even bother with the conventional entrance. Instead, he scaled the wall to a window he knew Marian nearly always forgot to lock and entered her dark abode. He opened the door to her bedroom, letting the almost overwhelming feral need to be near her, to protect her, overcome the propriety of sleeping apart from her.

She was alone and blissfully asleep for a second before she shot up in bed and summoned fire into her hand. With a twitch, the fireplace and all the candles were lit as well. The sudden abundance of light left Fenris extremely disoriented and he stumbled back against the door as he frantically willed his eyes to adjust.

"Fenris?" came her softly astonished voice, husky from sleep, as all but a few of the candles extinguished themselves. "What are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

What could he say? That Anders' spooked him? Now that he saw her here tucked safely in her bed, his reasons for coming began to feel very, very stupid but still held an undeniable grip over him. He stood instead frozen in the doorway as his mind raced through possible explanations he could give her.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts he didn't notice her moving toward him until her lips touched so softly against his cheek. She was dressed in a thin, dark nightgown- horribly low cut over her bosom- and he struggled to keep his eyes above her neckline, opting instead to pull her against him to protect her modesty from his eyes. A sweet exhale left her, like his arms were all she wanted. A broken breath escaped him and he met her kiss, returning it with a gentle one of his own. Her mouth was memorized- another piece of her that he sought to capture. It wasn't sexual and she seemed to instantly know that, letting the kiss remain soft as she tangled her fingers with his in the same way she permitted her tongue.

"Stay with me," she whispered softly to him. The sheets would be so sweet against his skin. With a weak look, she began leading him to her bed, holding his hands until her knees touched the edge and then dropping one away as she fell back between the sheets with nary a coy look as the digits of one hand clasped into his own.

"Come lie next to me," she murmured into the empty air, avoiding him for his own sake. But there was no sexual teasing in her soft plea. Her eyes were innocently large, her body deceptively soft. She whispered, "Please."

She was never demanding- it was always an option that she never pushed. Just an offering to tell him that he was wanted there.

With a heavy sigh, he pulled off his shirt and dropped it to the floor, electing to leave his pants in place more as a preventative measure than anything else, and followed her between the soft sheets. He curled himself over her, tucking her body back into the security of his arms and focusing on her breathing; the beautiful rise and fall of her chest reassured him that they were each of them safe. She entwined their fingers and let out a contented sound before beginning the return to her quiet slumber.

She fell back into his embrace but craned her neck to regard him directly, "You are… you are everything to me."

"And you," he murmured back with a kiss brushing over her shoulder. He spoke it without the jaded, hateful countenance that compromised the feelings that pounded through his chest every time he thought of her. He forgot the magic that he so despised that coursed through her very soul, forgot the raindrops billowing through the storm, forgot the thunder in the clouds, forgot the spark in the inferno. He'd said it because in that moment it was undeniably and utterly true.

The world was still and quiet. She was warm and mercifully, unthinkably still. Their existence carrying no further than beyond their sweet breath. Maker, the affection was so simple he truly believed that it itself could be enough.

Then she'd rolled to face him, insatiable cuddlebug that she was, surrendered her body once more and whispered quietly into his neck that she loved him- so softly he was sure he'd not been meant to hear it. He stayed silent, his body a wretched knot of neurotic tendencies. He was a man more inclined to raise a fist than a friendly finger, would lift a deadly blade before raising his voice… and Marian seemed to sleepily know, and resigned herself to an unspoken understanding. For everything the mage was and was not- she understood.

As the Fade took her away, Fenris stroked his hand over her side and considered his encounter with the Darktown healer. What had she done for Anders and what about the mage had left him so uneasy? Sometime after the first hour of lying next to her unconscious countenance, it had dawned on him what Anders' expression meant and why it had distressed him so. And he had to tell her… because she may not believe it from anyone else.

It was lunacy. Anders had gone mad, lost to the demon he hosted.

He frantically pushed the image of the younger Leto from his mind, terrified that if he stared too long back into that memory he may reveal the source of it. Instead, the scent of her hair and the feel of her nightgown slipping over her skin drew his focus. Then he'd fallen asleep waiting for her to awaken, utterly unwilling to disturb her from her peaceful slumber because she'd seen so little sleep in the last days… and then he waked to find Hawke had already departed, her final gift to him being a brief lie-in before the world itself was ripped asunder.

---

Fenris awoke much later to a sensation very much like being pulled neck first out of a freezing lake. His body ached, he was shaking and gasping until his head spun. The air heaving in and out of his lungs made the dizziness worse and he barely choked back the urge to vomit. His head… Maker help him, his pounding head. Both hands were bound behind his back, trapped in chains… trapped…

Danarius…

Without further thought, the lyrium activated… he could push through the chains and destroy the men who captured him. But before he could loose himself, the younger Hawke appeared and wound his hand roughly into the elf's hair, wrenching his head up until he felt tiny pops along his neck.

A sound he'd never heard before from the boy growled viciously into his ear, the snarl dripping with malice and the promise of violence, "I know enough about your abilities, elf. But unless you want a fight, you'd best stay put. I will kill you. I will murder you a thousand times over- make no mistake. If you raise a hand to harm any of us, I will kill you. If you try to escape, I will kill you. Understood?"

Fenris managed a painful nod and with that was shoved unceremoniously back to the ground before Carver stormed from the tent. His throat felt like he'd been gargling dirt for at least a week and he was nearly sure that if he were to cough, he'd spurt out dust.

"The lad doesn't seem too keen on earning your approval any longer," the prince mused.

The elf groaned as the words grated into his ears, "That is a fortunate turn of events for him, considering he is even less likely to earn it now."

His companion chuckled softly before he muttered, "Welcome to the center of the rebellion. This," Sebastian craned his head to indicate their surroundings, "is apparently where they keep prisoners. To your left, there's a chamber pot."

"How far are we from Starkhaven?" Fenris croaked the question; his mind still a bit too muzzy and his mouth dry as the desert itself. The headache continued banging relentlessly against his skull, making it difficult to focus on Sebastian's answer.

"I'm not entirely sure, we took a very unnecessarily complicated route to get here." Sebastian smiled ruefully and shifted uncomfortably on the ground, "You need to lay off the sweets, you are deceptively heavy."

"I myself was cursing every cake you've eaten since reclaiming your throne when I was carting you from Anders," he smirked back, wincing at the bright light before resigning to shut his eyes. "What do you think is going on?"

Sebastian, noting his attempt to disguise his agony, gave a short look of pity and nothing more- after all there was virtually nothing the prince could do to ease it. He did, however, drop the volume of his voice to a low murmur when he answered, "A few people came in, they looked like apostates and defected Templars. They asked me a few questions and have been in a meeting ever since, excepting just now when Carver came in to give you the antidote for the poison. That was probably two hours ago. I'm glad you awoke, I found myself getting rather bored."

"What did they want to know?" he replied, dropping his head to shield his eyes further from the light. It was the only action he could take to ease the pain ratcheting through his skull but the relief wasn't enough. Focus on something else, he commanded himself. His eyes chose a small ant as a distraction and he watched it with rapt attention while he listened for the archer's response.

"What are our intentions? Why were we with Anders?" Sebastian trailed off for a moment before finishing, "Who sent us?"

Fenris knitted his eyebrows together for a moment before he responded, "We came on our own." The ant was carrying a disproportionately large crumb of bread and began trekking over his toe, unaware that its life would be much easier without scaling impromptu mountains.

"They didn't seem to take me at my word. You and I do not appear to be their favorite people at the moment."

A lilting voice announced itself with the soft question, "Given the circumstances, can you really blame us? You're both responsible for Hawke's absence. You have no idea what unspeakable danger we've had to put ourselves in because of you."

Sharp ears recognized the quiet, whimsical way only Merrill could have delivered such an accusation. A quick glance confirmed her presence- She looked no worse for wear- a little thinner perhaps, slightly older, and by far more wary of the two men bound on their knees before her than she'd ever been before.

She dropped to her knees before Fenris and unsealed a vial before meeting the other elf's gaze. "Tilt your head back," she said gently, her tone as always so soft it was easy to mistake it for a request rather than a command.

Fenris barked out a laugh, the sound intensifying the headache immensely for a second, before he sneered, "You must be joking."

"If we wanted to kill you, we would have done it already," Merrill reasoned with the sort of logic Fenris found difficult to argue with but when he remained still and tight-lipped, she released a long-exasperated sigh. "I made the poison Carver used on you, Fenris. The headache is only going to get worse if you don't drink this."

A quick weighing of his options- drink the vile concoction Merrill presented him with and risk all sorts of tortured deaths, stay put and endure this migraine until it passed over provided it passed over at all, or rise to his feet and attempt to defeat Merrill, Carver, and countless others while simultaneously battling aforementioned migraine- revealed them all to be deeply terrible. Merrill, so far as his experience told him, was highly naïve and, more importantly, an utterly guileless woman. Hawke had mused that she could tell what Merrill was going to do before the elf herself even knew.

Merrill's eyes shone with the same strange candor they always did. If this tincture were indeed another poison then Merrill clearly didn't know it. The drumming in his head kept pounding harder and with a defeated sigh, he dropped his head back and allowed the blood mage to pour another disgusting potion into his mouth. The first swallow saw the pain dissipate after only a few seconds and he breathed a sigh of relief at finally being freed from its grip.

When he opened his eyes again, all he could see was green. It took a moment for his eyes to focus on the stem of leaves being held before him in Merrill's dainty fingers. It was mint, he realized quickly… Marian had always kept a bit of it on her in case Fenris drank any potions. She'd pass a sprig or two to him surreptitiously along with whatever vials contained the cure for his ailments and he'd pop the leaves into his mouth after downing the wretched medicine to help clear the flavor. He'd never seen her offer it to anyone else but, knowing her, she may have been just as subtle with others as she'd been with him. But mint was something he'd never seen the demoness carry, the whimsy blood mage more inclined to pick flowers than anything even remotely useful.

So it seemed Hawke was training Merrill in the healing arts or at the very least swapping tips. That was… extremely interesting. Usually, blood mages made notoriously bad healers and the few occasions he'd witnessed Danarius or Hadriana even attempt the art were peppered with phrases like, "How was I supposed to know that went there?" and, "Stop bleeding, dammit!" and, perhaps the most horrifying of all, "Oops." Danarius and Hadriana, suffice it to say, couldn't heal a paper cut without sacrificing at least three goats.

That, tragically, wasn't even an exaggeration.

Banishing such thoughts from his head, he accepted the mint- gratefully, even- before he spoke again, "What happened to Anders, Merrill?"

She dropped her eyes and whispered, "Anders died. That thing you saw back there… there's none of Anders left in it."

"Then what was it?" Sebastian's voice cut through unexpectedly. Fenris had nearly forgotten the prince knelt here captive with him.

"That's enough, Merrill," another woman told the elf sternly but kindly as she entered the tent. "You've got company. I'll watch these two."

This new woman stood fairly tall for a human from his vantage point, likely roughly his own height. She had light blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail but that appeared to be the only loose thing about her. Her face while attractive was sharply elegant and calculating. Though she gave the air of being wholly unconcerned with their appearance or their actions, Fenris got the rather distinct impression that every shift of their bodies and tic of their faces was being silently noted, recorded, and filed away as she continued to address Merrill.

"Margot, Carver said…" Merrill whispered anxiously, like a youth being told to steal from her mother's purse.

The other woman smiled with amusement and huffed out a breath of amused laughter with the words, "I know what Carver said. I just want to talk to these two. There's no harm in talking, right?"

Merrill, clearly looking for an argument to make and finding none, gave an apologetic shrug to Fenris and Sebastian before turning to exit the tent. The other woman, this Margot, lowered herself gracefully to the ground before them, legs slightly akimbo and bent before her, and her lithe arms resting on her knees as she considered the men before her. For minutes, silence prevailed as she scrutinized them, from Fenris' bare feet to the emblem of Andraste adorning Sebastian's belt to the regal cut of the monarch's hair to the Templar pendant around the former slave's neck.

"Why are you here?" she asked softly, finally.

"We came here to find and defeat Anders," Sebastian answered with the same quiet.

"Anders isn't here," the woman said bluntly as she tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "Why are you here?"

Fenris couldn't resist his chortle as he retorted, "Because Carver Hawke poisoned me into unconsciousness and forced the Prince of Starkhaven to carry me here."

Laughter bubbled from Margot's throat, whole and happy as she threw her head back. "That sounds more accurate at least," she stifled her giggles through the words before managing to contain herself once more. "So you mean that you did not come here to harm us," she said in a sort of half-questioning tone.

"Only if you stood with him," Sebastian replied simply.

"And you truly have no idea what's happened since Kirkwall?"

"Evidently," Fenris answered with a tired smirk, feeling that was an incredibly stupid question to ask. The woman redirected her attention in a manner that made the elf feel entirely uncomfortable. Her visual assessment was cold, detached as she followed the lines of lyrium to meet his eyes with her dark ones.

"You're Fenris," she said decided, tilting her head curiously as she regarded him. "She talked about you. Didn't she kill you?"

"Do not speak of her," he replied angrily. He straightened his spine from his near perpetual slouch, desiring to appear somewhat larger beneath the woman's rather intense scrutiny, and he spat, "You know nothing about her or what she was to me."

Something flickered in her eyes then, like a faint amusement that she knew something he didn't. "Whatever she was, you certainly turned your back on it quickly enough," came her soft and extremely accurate answer.

There was no argument he could make against her, which frustrated him. Maker help him, he really hated people pointing out the obvious, especially when the obvious brought feelings of shame and righteous indignation. "I hardly need to justify my decisions to some mage sympathizer," Fenris spat instead, trying to steer the conversation away from Marian and everything he'd done.

She arched her brow at him and shook her head, saying, "I'm no sympathizer. I'm a Templar. It happens to be a duty I take quite seriously."

Sebastian snorted beside him, "A Templar, you say? Well, in that case I'm the High Demon and my friend here is the Princess of Orlais." Sarcasm dripped from his thick accent. "Why would they permit a Templar to walk free among the mage rebellion?"

"You mean free like Carver walks free?" Margot replied with a smirk. The woman withdrew a small silver blade and held it in her mouth as she gracelessly crawled over to Sebastian. "I want you to see something," she mumbled through her teeth when he began to back away. The alleged Templar bent down behind the prince, cutting free the ropes binding his hands before doing the same for Fenris. Without another word, she rose to her feet and exited the tent with an unspoken command for them to follow.

Sebastian felt infinitely wary and conveyed that with a furrow of his brow to Fenris, who in turned simply shrugged. This Margot intended to show them something. They weren't going to know if it was good or bad until they saw it for themselves. Margot was also at this point the only person he'd seen in the last five days that wasn't dead, undead, a blood mage, a devious prince, or his ex-lover's murderously angry younger brother. Given his unknown surroundings and current company, he figured he may as well risk his chances with this new woman.

His knees popped and creaked as he rose to his feet to exit the tent. While a painful sensation, it was still a welcome one cutting through his limbs, stiff from sitting still too long. Even hyper-focusing his will, he couldn't prevent his legs from shaking. He had after all been lying prone for the better part of two days, he did not envy Sebastian's winces when the prince rose to his feet as well. It was dusk or dawn, though the positioning of the sun in the sky indicated the former. They followed the woman who led them from the rather isolated prisoner tent and toward the greater camp. They walked past two sentries, likely guarding Fenris and Sebastian, who noted their escort and allowed them through with unrestrainedly hostile looks before turning and falling in behind them.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected to see but was more than a little shocked at the sight presented before him. Children too young to have manifested magic were playing while the adults around them looked worried and scared. There were people who were clearly sick. A small group of men and women stood guard around the perimeter wielding staves and swords, anxiously watching for danger. There were fewer than twenty that he could immediately identify as mages. The rest of them, he reasoned, were either family, sympathizers, or- and he suspected this to be the most likely- they were Templars as well.

He'd heard rumors of Templars deserting to join this side of the war- it had been what inspired him to contact Marian in the first place- but had never thought there could be even an ounce of organization to it. He'd already decided most of those who'd defected were manipulated into doing so with blood magic and predicted rampant demons, unrepentant abominations, and dirt stained scarlet with the blood sacrifices necessary to keep a group of devout Templar brothers under sustained control.

The presence of Carver, the introduction of this strange woman Margot, and his reunion with Marian sent that belief flying. Those wearing the tattered Chantry armor maintained an aura of careful control and vigilance. Even so, he did not for even a moment entertain the idea of letting his guard down. He was already disarmed, hungry, on foreign terrain, and at a severe disadvantage overall but he still had the lyrium. If push came to shove, he could power through many of these people and possibly make an escape with Sebastian before he took too much damage.

Margot's voice abruptly interrupted his reverie. "These people aren't hardened criminals," she said gravely to Sebastian. "They are as much Anders' victims as the people who died in the Kirkwall Chantry. I only wish the bastard were alive to see the faces of all the people he slaughtered."

"I imagine you'll have quite the fight on your hands should you even try to reinstate the Circles," Fenris huffed. Even if things were vastly different from his predictions, that did not mean he was prepared to abandon his convictions. This was a garden filled with wasps and while they weren't riled now, the consequences would be catastrophic once someone took a swing at the nest.

She glared daggers at the elf, turning her body to face him fully. "These mages didn't rebel because they wanted to practice blood magic, Fenris. They rebelled because they wanted better lives and they ran when the order went out to cull them. Most of these people want to go back. Some of them never wanted to leave."

Before he could assess the imminent threat, stomping boots sounded behind them, "What the Blight do you think you're doing?" Carver's voice barked as he stalked over to them, nearly shaking with rage.

Margot shrugged and replied, "I wanted to see what the fuss was all about. I'll admit the elf is a bit pissy but I'm not exactly shaking in my boots here, Carver." Her posture was defiant and she crossed her arms in a stubborn manner that all but invited Carver to give his opinion on her actions.

Carver hatefully snarled, "We are still deciding what to do with them!"

Margot snapped her reply, "And I am doing the same with them that we do with any new people who come into our camp. Why won't you just admit that you're pissed off because they hurt your sister and you can't justify attacking them?"

"Oh, I can justify attacking them," Carver sneered, withdrawing a small blade from his pocket as he considered Margot's position.

"Fine," Margot replied and removed herself from between Carver and the two interlopers. "If you think they're that dangerous then do it. I trust your judgment."

Fenris kept the lyrium in check as Carver withdrew his knife once more from his belt and contemplated it for a moment. Then he ducked his head down in an angry quake, but maintained his furious stillness when he clearly desired malice. It was obvious the boy was working through his violent urges when a familiar voice cut through the scene once more and sank Carver's shoulders back into an unwilling calm…

"Carver, you can't…" the soft, elven voice pleaded. "Most of the people here would consider my past to be far more grievous than siding with the Templars in Kirkwall."

He growled in her direction and snarled, "You are different!"

"It is not different, ma vhenan…" Merrill asserted softly. With a duck of her head, she approached Carver and hesitantly placed her hand on his neck. "You know she wouldn't want this," she murmured before rising to her toes and pressing her lips to his cheek.

"Merrill," Carver whispered before he twisted his head into Merrill's kiss for a brief moment. She pulled away with a gentle smile, bowing her head against Carver's neck in a sort of strange affection. Carver sheathed his knife with a hateful look directed at Fenris, which Fenris returned in kind.

"A Templar and a blood mage?" Fenris spat at Carver, unable to even comprehend the hypocrisy he was witnessing. Was Carver so besotted he failed to see the clear and present threat a blood mage openly flaunting her defilement in the camp posed? He took two long strides forward and poked his index finger in front of Carver's idiot face and shouted, "Are you such a fool? What manner of rebellion do you think you are running here?"

"She's not a blood mage," the man snarled softly back, swatting the elf's hand away and giving him a hard shove.

Fenris stumbled three full steps before he regained his composure and began stalking forward again. Margot and the two guards that escorted them here ducked into battle stances before a hand seized his forearm. Anyone else could have looked forward to a fist through their chest for such a gesture but, fortunately, he didn't even have to look back to know the offending grip was Sebastian's. With a deep breath, stopped in his tracks and lowered his hands. As much as he'd love to strike the idiot boy down, fighting Carver Hawke in the middle of his own camp was unbelievably reckless.

Before he could formulate a proper retort, Merrill interrupted. "I've given it up," she said, turning to face Fenris directly. She met his glare evenly, candidly as she always had. Merrill was a good many things… but she, like Carver, had never been a particularly good liar. Regardless of her proclivity for the dark arts, she at the very least seemed to consider herself to be done with it.

He knew better than she that abstinence was not so simple. His head shook sadly at her ignorance and he said, "I'll believe it when I see it. A blood mage cannot resist temptation in a fight."

"I know, I've… I've given it all up," she uttered with a tone that deeply betrayed her selected path; that she wanted to be fighting with the rest of them but at the very least seemed to understand that was a road skirting temptation and she shouldn't foolishly walk upon it. "I'd hardly be much of a help. I do what I can around the camp; you know, cooking, telling stories to the children. And Hawke's also helping me learn some healing, so there's that, too." Fenris caught the cadence of her speech increasing as well as the tone and recognized the other elf working herself up into a flurry of completely daunted speech that could feasibly continue until she collapsed from lack of air, something which he'd seen only once. "I can sew a little bit, nothing too difficult but I can mend socks and whatnot… not that I have a particular use for socks. I tried a pair once but I kept slipping over the floor…"

Fenris knew this unanswered dialogue would continue indefinitely as the elf continued to fluster herself further, so he cut her off with a, "That's fine, I suppose," which saw the errant former Knight-Captain rewarded with a grateful nod from none other than Carver, strange as that seemed.

The younger Templar wrapped his arms around Merrill, pulling her back into his embrace. The proximity seemed to calm her and her shoulders unwound from the tenseness they'd been brought to. "I could not have done it alone," she told them simply before pulling away from the human, not aggressively but delivering a look back as if to reaffirm that she could stand on her own.

"I am done with it," she affirmed in an almost determined voice. "They insisted that I had no place here unless I made one for myself. They would have permitted me to run. I am not here for them, but for myself."

It was at the very least a highly interesting development. Merrill's confession told him several things she'd not explicitly stated. Firstly, Carver was clearly in charge of the group at the moment and, though his affections for Merrill had been obvious and unrequited even in Kirkwall, he had finally secured a relationship with the whimsy elf. Secondly, blood magic was apparently forbidden here. That in itself was more than a small shock.

But the information that was by far the most valuable was that it appeared a majority of the rebellion camp was unfamiliar with her past. That was a weapon he could possibly use to divide the camp amongst itself. Carver and a selected group of Templars would surely stand in defense of Merrill but the rest… Maker, if he were coy and clever enough he could rip the rebellion apart at its very heart.

He could end this war. Once the base of this rebellion was compromised, each individual cell would be subsequently weakened- ready for occupation. The mages could be dragged back into the Circles and he'd be lauded as a hero. Oddly, the last part held absolutely no appeal for him- even went so far as to cancel out several immediate benefits he could foresee. Fenris would always be at least somewhat wanted in Tevinter and thus it behooved him to remain as anonymous and unsung as possible.

… and strangely, the potential destruction of the mage rebellion also failed to deliver the expected pangs of immense satisfaction.

That was strange. This was all was beyond strange.

Time would certainly see him through it… but a certain part of him wondered at the cost.

It was the part of him that kept him dreaming about Marian.

He found himself immensely irritated with the plucky mage for that.

With Merrill standing aside, Carver drew his wary gaze to Sebastian, seeming unable to regard Fenris directly. It made sense- in Tevinter, Fenris would have been called a blood-enemy- someone who threatened a family member stood to destroy the family unit as a whole. As of this point, the ragtag Hawke clan consisted only of Marian and her brother. The war had inspired closeness between them previously unwitnessed in Kirkwall.

"I hated Anders," Carver finally mumbled, "hated him from the first time I heard him spout his stupid words out of his stupid bloody mouth. I hate everything he stood for and I hate everything he did."

The smile that cracked over Fenris' face was genuine. There had been only two things that he and Carver had in common, a firm belief that big swords often communicated better than words and a mutual hatred of Anders. That composed pretty much every civilized conversation he'd ever had with the boy.

"But these people," the boy continued and gestured futilely into the camp, "they are not Anders. He murdered these people like he murdered the people in Kirkwall's Chantry.

"These people need protection. They succumb when the trials are too hard. They cave just like any other person would… they're just better armed." He swallowed hard, like the words were utterly painful to choke down before he continued, "Our job is to protect them. From the world… from themselves… Our duty is to ensure that sort of desperation never hits them so hard."

But the argument rang false. He knew of at least once case Carver couldn't defend, so the elf growled, "And what of Orsino? I was under the impression the battle was practically won before he turned against your sister."

The boy ducked his head both angrily and reverently. "I couldn't say. I respected him. Respected him more than I respected even my own sister until the end. She held him in high regard… it must have been like the Corypheus fiasco all over again.

"I never asked her about it," he uttered with the heaviness of guilt that Fenris himself recognized. "I never cared to know if the line she toed had shifted because of Father's and Orsino's indiscretions. That was her burden, although I now suspect it is mine as well.

"Not that we can even begin to deal with the Chantry crisis," the unrepentant boy finished. "Anders is the bigger threat now."

"Anders is an abomination your sister allowed to manifest into a psychotic maniac completely unchecked. You cannot deny her role in this," Sebastian provided in the hatefully pragmatic manner he was predisposed to. Even while he vehemently fought for it, Fenris knew the prince's position was far more conflicted.

Carver scowled angrily at the prince, "People can change their minds. My sister's fault is that she didn't change hers soon enough."

"Your sister refused to recognize danger when it was staring her in the face," Sebastian retorted.

Carver shot a withering and pointed glance to the prince and then the elf before he replied with a simple, "Clearly." Silence hung between them for a long time before he spoke woodenly again, "Now that you know where we stand, I ask you- are you threats to us?"

"No," Sebastian answered automatically.

Fenris' answer was not so immediate, not for any sort of disinclination toward lying but because Carver's eyes stated that the elf's denial would be rejected. There was after all nearly a decade of evidence that indicated otherwise. So instead, he met Carver's eyes and steadily answered, "Yes."

Margot began to draw the sword at her hip but before Carver could reply, Merrill took a step forward and asked, "Would you fight the mages' reintegration into the Chantry's Circle?"

He bowed his head for a moment, considered his beliefs and replied, "No. Not if it were done safely." Margot nodded her approval and sheathed her weapon. Merrill ducked her head and regarded Carver once more. His furious gaze betrayed his lover's defiance. She'd prodded the elven Templar into correctly answering Carver's query at the expense of her lover's authority.

Fenris deeply hated being indebted to the potentially former blood mage but gave her a look of gratitude regardless- mostly because he rather liked being alive. He felt he was generally more effective that way and the concept of martyrdom was distinctly unappealing.

Silently, Merrill beckoned himself and Sebastian forward, which Carver hatefully accepted and led them. They moved through the camp until they encountered a campfire, more or less isolated from the greater camp, and were beckoned to sit around it.

Fenris seated himself in the small circle. The fire glowed benevolently in the center, leading him to believe some sort of ritual was likely to occur. Sebastian sat next to him in an act of solidarity. Then Carver, Margot, Merrill, the two guards who'd supervised their imprisonment, three mages, and another Templar seated themselves around the same fire.

Once the party seemed full, Carver stated simply, "I think we should dump them near Starkhaven and retreat before they can give chase."

Margot spoke next, "They disagree on points but not on principle. We should see it out. They could be powerful allies against Anders."

"I won't go back to the way things were," a mage uttered. "Point and principle are far beyond where we stand. They are with us or they are against us."

"Anders is not our primary concern," a man agreed though Fenris could not determine exactly who had said it.

Another snorted angrily, "He'll kill us all if we don't find a way to rally against him!"

"Awww, did I miss the sing-a-long? Come on, let's all hold hands, sing a song, and talk about the power of love," came a new voice calling from the edge of the wood. "The fact is, Hawke isn't here and she's the one who's been wronged. We need to be thinking about what she'd want."

Varric Tethras emerged and smiled easily to the crowd, "She usually gives the benefit of the doubt. I think she'd want you to do the same. The last thing she wants is a witch-hunt against any people who may have hurt her. Maker knows, half of Thedas would be marked for death if she did."

"They tried to kill her," Carver spat.

Varric replied easily, "Then let her judge them. Throwing these two morons back into the woods is cutting off your nose to spite your face."

"It is cutting off their noses!"

"And who gets hurt? It isn't you. It's her," the dwarf rationalized as he seated himself, though the difference in his height, even seated, remained minimal. "She gets hurt. I get hurt! And, frankly, I didn't just spend three weeks getting the shit beaten out of me by the Chantry's Seeker to see you put my dashing good looks to waste!"

"They betrayed her."

"Then it isn't your call, Junior," Varric grumbled. "She'll make it when she comes back."

Carver ducked his head and looked away… but Fenris saw his eyes dampen. Merrill cuddled up to him, snuggled closer so his face would be hidden against her neck. Something was wrong but he had no clue as to exactly what it was- could only recognize that it inspired a great anxiety in Marian's brother.

"Leave us," Carver snapped at the congregation before regarding Sebastian once more, "You and the elf can stay. If Varric and Merrill are willing to put their necks on the line for you than perhaps you aren't as worthless as you appear." Without further prompting, everyone barring Merrill, Varric, Fenris, and Sebastian rose to leave. It felt almost like old times.

Once the others had provided ample distance, Carver asked in a deceptively casual, singsong voice, "So how was Kirkwall?"

Varric ignored his tone and said, "I got dragged into your mother's estate and was forced to answer a ridiculous number of questions. Don't worry, they don't know where your sister is."

Carver dropped his head once more. The elf closed her eyes and stroked his hair, seeming entirely disinclined to offer any explanations. Soft, indefinable words were passed from her lips into his ear and they caused Carver's shoulders to fall even farther into her. "What do they know?" the younger Hawke finally asked, his words only slightly muffled against the palms of his hands.

Varric, noticing the awkwardness as well, answered, "That Meredith was defeated and your sister ran like the Blight was chasing her."

"They don't know about Tevinter?" Carver asked dumbly.

Varric cocked his head in confusion and asked, "She's gone to Tevinter?"

Carver breathed a sigh of relief. He huffed several breaths against Merrill. "Good," he finally replied. "At least they won't start looking for her there. What do they know about Anders?"

"They just think your sister freed him," Varric affirmed. "I didn't feel any compulsion to tell them much more."

"To think she let him go," Sebastian whispered. "That she allowed him become this thing…"

Carver interrupted with a quick, "She let him go because killing Anders in front of the Chantry was only going to make him a martyr. She let him go because killing him was what he wanted."

"Wait," Varric interrupted. All eyes turned to the dwarf as an expression of dismay and shock fell over his broad face. He pushed on, rapidly asking, "She let him go, that's all she ever told you? She's never said anything else about it?"

"Yes, you took off and she took him away from camp and then she came back and told us she'd let him go." Carver snapped, "Why?"

"That…" Varric's voice carried over from the campfire before tapering off as though the storyteller was unsure exactly what to say. Fenris had only seen the dwarf so hesitant to talk once before on the night he burst into the elf's dilapidated mansion and struggled to tell him that the matron Hawke had been murdered.

"That what?" Carver lunged slightly forward with his accusation.

"… that isn't… entirely true," Varric muttered, bringing his thick fingers up to massage his temples. "I mean, it's true in so much that she didn't lie but she… she may have omitted a few details during the retelling."

"Omitted what?" Carver asked impatiently. Varric continued in his silence, uncharacteristically at a loss for words, jaw opening and shutting a few times as he began to speak and then seemed to think better of it. "She omitted what, Varric?" the younger Hawke repeated harshly.

Varric took a deep breath. Then he took several more as he carefully weighed his words. "When she said that she let Anders go, she didn't exactly mean she took him into the woods and politely asked him to leave."

Carver's face went pale at the implications of Varric's words but pushed on regardless. "Then what did she mean?"

Varric's eyes, cold and tired, met with Sebastian's and spoke the words Fenris already knew, "She took him into the woods and she killed him."

"Are you certain," Sebastian interrupted with a sudden desperation, like he wanted above all else for this to not be true, like he wanted an affirmation that he hadn't thrown away six years of friendship in a fit of childish rage. "How do you know for certain?"

Varric laughed bitterly and shook his head, taking his attention from the prince and returning it to gaze at the fire. "I know," he began before he stopped to take another deep breath, shutting his eyes to shutter back the unshed tears threatening to fall, "I know because I helped her bury him."

---

AN- I seriously almost titled this one, "Holy Shit, it's Chapter 9!"

First, I'd like to thank everyone who wished me a speedy recovery from my knee surgery. I'd really hoped that the downtime would offer me a chance to write without distractions but unfortunately I ended up spending the better part of the last break groggy and somewhat miserable. It was a huge boon to get your well wishes especially while I was in so much pain, so thank you. You all made a terribly shitty situation so much better.

Special thanks to my betas, Buried_Beneath and AmericanCorvus for proofreading this. Also to NoMadKa, for kicking my ass back into gear.

Another special thanks to ineffableigor and their tumblr account for the super-flattering and wonderful review. I hope I can live up to the recommendation!

And, as always, a massive thanks to everyone who reads and everyone who takes the time to review. You're all awesome. Thank you so much for your collective patience while I recovered and put this together.