Fenris blinked.
The sky was deepest blue, unmarred by clouds. The blazing sun beat down upon him, but, strangely, did not warm his skin.
"Lazy."
Fenris lifted his head — should it have been so difficult? No matter — and squinted up at the voice, but the sun was too bright in its deep blue sky. Then the voice's owner crouched down and grinned at him.
Freckles still dappled her sunburnt nose.
Still?
"Liaria," he breathed, her name tasting strange and somehow wrong upon his tongue. For half a heartbeat he thought he remembered a different name, warmer and sweeter, but then it was gone, leaving emptiness and Liaria in its place. Again he struggled to sit up, settling for pushing himself onto one elbow. They were atop one of Minrathous' many hills; this particular one overlooked the arena.
Warriors fought in the arena. Fighting was important. Essential. But he couldn't quite grasp why. He put one hand to his ribs, half-expecting to find his fingers stained with blood, but they came away clean even though a phantom ache lingered.
"Are you still sore from sparring practice yesterday?"
He blinked. She reached out, almost but not quite touching him, and only weariness kept him from actively rolling away from her.
"I got you good," she reminded him, pointing at his ribs. "Not surprised it still hurts. You let your guard down."
"I never let my guard down," he protested.
Her laugh was cold and bright, like the sun beating down upon them.
It was strange how cold the sun was. It was strange how cold her laughter.
"What are you doing here, Leto? This isn't like you." Liaria flung herself down on the grass next to him and rolled onto her side, still smiling.
He had a reason for being here. A reason. What was it? Fenris squinted at the sky, trying to remember. Above him a hawk circled, hunting prey, its movements somehow precise and effortless at the same time. When it flew too close to the sun, he had to look away from the blinding brightness, and by the time his eyesight recovered it was gone.
"My name is not Leto," he finally said. That he remembered.
Liaria shook her head and smiled. No blood stained her teeth. "You'll always be Leto to me."
Fenris frowned. Blood? Leto? All around them, the earth was baked and parched and dry, the grass long since having forgotten even the memory of green. He could not remain here. There was something he was meant to be doing. Something. He looked down again at the amphitheater.
This time when Liaria reached out she did touch him. Her fingers were cold, colder than the sun, colder even than her laughter. He shuddered under her touch, and she giggled, evidently believing his response one of pleasure. Perhaps it was. He could not remember. Her fingers traced invisible whorls and patterns across his skin, and for a second he thought he would see light where her fingers passed. The sun flashed like lyrium burning, and the heat was so abruptly intense he sat upright, pulling himself away from Liaria's wandering hands. She made a displeased sound deep in her throat.
"I fought for these markings," he said. "I killed for them."
Liaria giggled again, the sound eerie and disingenuous. "What markings, love? I see only the same old scars, the same old memories of battles fought and won."
He glanced down at his arms, but she was right. Where he expected to see ghostly white lines, only the occasional mark of silvered scar tissue—this, from his battle with Dericus; that, the time Meria nearly ended him in the arena—met his gaze.
He raised his fingers to the hollow of his throat, but instead of the familiar ridges of the necklace his mother had given him—Elgar'nan, God of Vengeance—he felt only smooth skin. Smooth, warm skin. All around the tiny patch of warmth his skin was cold—his fingers were freezing—but there, there it was all warmth. The warmth of a mother's love. The warmth of a lover's kiss.
He glanced sideways at Liaria. Though her lips were still smiling, ever smiling, her eyes were narrowed. He knew that look. He'd seen it before. On the battlefield. Before I killed her.
He shook his head and the memory fled, taking the warmth with it, leaving cold in its place.
"Come back with me, love," Liaria pleaded. "Your mother's been expecting you. She has missed you so much. We've all missed you. Come back with me."
Again he shook his head, inching away from her.
"You can rest there."
He was so weary. Weary to his very bones. His body ached with weariness.
"No," he said. "I cannot."
Live. Fight.
The sky above him was blue, blue like…
And there was the bird again, still circling, still hunting.
"I am looking for someone," he said suddenly, but grasping onto the thought was like trying to keep a hold on sand. "She needs me."
Liaria's full lips turned down in a pout. "What about me, love? I need you. I've been waiting here for ages. What about your mother?"
He gasped and squeezed his eyes shut as hot and cold overtook him, searing through his veins, fire chasing ice and ice circling back on fire. Liaria grabbed his wrist, her fingers like claws—he didn't have time to remove his clawed gauntlet; the pointed fingertips tore into her chest and he hoped he was not doing more damage than good—and she pulled at him with all her warrior's fierceness, all the strength born of training and desperation.
He was still stronger than her. As rain coursed down his face and neck, he pushed. Her body gave against the blade, and he felt rather than heard — the crowd had exploded into chaos and noise; it was loud, so impossibly loud — the snap of her spine.
It wasn't raining, but the sun was hot again, and when Fenris felt the fingers drop away from his wrist he opened his eyes to see Liaria sprawled beside him.
The sunburn on her nose was fading.
Her teeth were stained with blood.
"I must go," he said. It was not an apology.
"No," said a voice behind him, a voice he knew, a voice that chilled him once again to the very soul. "No, my little wolf. You must come with me."
Liaria was gone. Sunburns and freckles faded to dust and bone, because of Danarius. Gone forever. Cold. Cold as the ice in Danarius' blue eyes. Cold and dark. It was dark. The sun was gone and only a sliver of a moon shone above — high above the trees. They were lush and tall, casting shadows in darkness. He could smell the cloying scent of flowers, the tang of the ocean. Seheron.
"Idiot girl," sneered Danarius. "The foolish thing thought she knew you."
Moonlight leeched the color from Danarius robes, but his eyes glowed in the dimness. Cold blue eyes. Seheron was always hot, never cold, but Fenris felt a chill deep within his bones.
He clutched at himself to ward off the chill. "She did know me."
The magister's voice frosted over and Fenris felt his words like a blade, "She did know me… what?"
He knew the answer, knew what he was meant to say, but the word hesitated on his tongue all the same. He could not make it form. The jungle was closing in around them and the scent of flowers had gone rotten and fetid as his ears filled with the clacking sounds of insects, the buzzing of wings.
"Well, Fenris?"
"…Master," he whispered, but the word tasted like sand and ash in his mouth, a foulness from which he would never be free. Free. Perhaps… perhaps he'd been mistaken. "Master," he said again, but the taste of the word didn't change.
No, that wasn't right either. Fenris' breathing quickened and his lungs began to burn as they protested the strain. He would be free. Was already free.
A tiny light appeared in the thick shadows before him, barely permeating the darkness. It glowed gently as it bobbed and dipped, floating unevenly through the air, coming to rest upon the top of his hand. A firefly. He stared at it as its tiny light glowed, strangely warm.
I am not a slave!
"Much better," Danarius purred. "And she couldn't have known the real you — she never thought you'd kill her, my wolf. But then, that's where your skill lies, isn't it? Such an effective weapon, such a predator. That's all you're good for."
"Yes, Master."
No. Never.
Fenris wasn't sure how it was he was able to move at all. He felt like he was being crushed from the inside out. He could barely breathe the air was so close and damp.
"And speaking of your… considerable skills…"
Light flashed from Danarius' fingertips; it was not pure light but dim and red-tinted, lengthening the shadows and reminding Fenris too much of blood — blood spilled by his own hand, blood spilled for Danarius' filthy magic. And then, bathed in that red light, he saw bodies. Countless bodies sprawled all around — the broken and bloodied bodies of the Fog Warriors who had taken him in, who had shown him such kindness, who had allowed them to be one of their own. Even in the shadowy red light, he saw each and every one of their twisted forms.
"You killed them all," whispered Danarius. "Every last one. Every last friend. Killed them because I ordered it. And you will do it again and again. Whatever I tell you to do, you will do it. That is what you are — a killer, a weapon, a wolf."
Shuddering, Fenris tried to look away from the carnage he knew he'd wrought, but Danarius' light surrounded him, closed in upon him, forcing his gaze. Fenris blinked hard and looked down to see the tiny insect crawling across the ridges of his knuckles, giving off a soft light despite this sea of red. Breathing in though it hurt, he curled his hands into fists and saw the twisting, twining white lines gracing his arms and traveling, he knew, down the whole of his body. They hadn't been there before, but he knew them now. Knew how badly they'd hurt. When the light came, as he'd somehow known it would, it coursed blue-white fire through his veins, burning him with cold and heat all at the same time.
I am not a slave!
He almost said it aloud, almost gave voice to the words that would rain down punishment the like of which he'd ever known, but then the cold and the heat faded away, leaving only weariness in their wake. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, and when the faint eddies of Danarius' power began to curve and curl and twine all about him, he found he did not have the energy left to fight them.
The energy became vines, heavy and powerful and old as the earth, wrapping first around his feet and ankles, and then slowly rising to his waist, always tightening, tightening. "N-no," he gasped.
"No? You have grown intractable, my little wolf. Intractable and insolent. You know what happens to those who disobey their masters."
"M-master. Please."
"Please? Please what?" Danarius sneered, as the magic squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. "Put you out of your misery? Allow you to join these… brethren you slaughtered?"
Fenris swallowed hard, his throat parched even though the air around him was moist and heavy with humidity.
"No, Fenris," Danarius said firmly. His tone brooked no argument. The vines continued their sinuous path, a mockery of the markings seared into Fenris' skin. The world was closing in, the dark was all around him.
The tiny flare of yellow-green light startled him, somehow reminding him he'd not yet completely gone under. I am not… I am not… Fenris fixed his gaze on the tiny pinprick of light, afraid to blink lest he lose its glow. I am not…
"Slave," Danarius commanded. "This is my enemy. Kill it. Kill it, and things will go back to the way they were always meant to be. All this will be forgiven."
Forgotten.
He blinked. The enemy was a child. She sat quietly amongst the bodies of the Fog Warriors, her too-pale face framed by dark curls, her green eyes wide and unblinking. She looked sad, but not terrified.
You should be terrified, he wanted to tell her. You do not know what I am. You do not have the first idea.
When he looked closer, he realized she was already wounded. The right sleeve of her dress was darker than the rest, and blood oozed from a wound to her shoulder.
"Master, she is only—"
Pain. Pain. Pain like he had never known. Pain like he'd never dreamed was possible. It seemed impossible to experience such pain and not die of it, but the pain went on and on and on, and he did not die. "You would defy me, slave? I made you. I can destroy you."
Fenris looked past Danarius—he will kill me, he will kill me for this—and met the gaze of the little girl. Fat tears ran down her face, illuminated by the fireflies dancing their elegant dance around her head. Very slowly, she raised the hand of her wounded arm and placed it over her heart.
"Here," she said, in a voice too old for the child who spoke it. He knew that voice, knew it like he knew his own, but when he tried to put a name to it the pain stole the word away.
You do not know what I am.
"Yes, I do," she said. "I trust you. Do it. Now."
"Do not listen, Fenris. She is the enemy. My word is law. Kill her."
A different pain—hot and cold dancing together so tightly he couldn't tell one from the other—chased the other pain away. He felt the vines loosening around him, ever so slightly. It was enough. He pulled free of them and stumbled forward, crawling toward the little girl. To kill her. To save her. To kill her. He didn't know.
No matter how many steps he took, she never grew closer.
To save her.
"I am not a slave," Fenris whispered. "I am not a slave. I am not a slave."
And then she was gone. He fell, rolling to his side and pressing one of his hands to his own heart. He could feel it thudding beneath his fingertips, too quick, too uneven. The firefly flashed once again before his eyes, and then flew in an open window. He could hear laughter within, and shouting, and something meant to pass for music. A sign above him had a picture of an upside down man, and words he could not read.
"Fenris," called Danarius, far behind him but not far enough, "come back, my little wolf. Come home."
I am not a slave, Fenris thought, and through the pain—oh, oh the pain—he forced himself to rise, and to push open the door. It gave suddenly and he staggered in, barely catching himself as he landed hard against an empty table. The door slammed and Fenris shut his eyes tightly, straining to hear Danarius' voice beyond the door, but the voices in the tavern filled his head, drowning out everything else. Dreams. Just old dreams.
One voice cut through the din. "Hey, Broody. We figured you for a no-show."
Fenris pried one eye open, then the other to find Varric holding court at a large table in the corner, Isabela on one side, Hawke on the other. Sebastian, Merrill, and Aveline took up the remaining chairs, save one. A pile of coins and trinkets in the center of the table glinted welcomingly in the lanternlight. The cards had already been shuffled and dealt. Bottles of wine and rum had been opened and poured. A glass full of dark red liquid sat on the table in front of the empty chair, waiting for him.
"Well, sit already, Fenris," Hawke said over her cards. "Your seat's getting cold and your wine's getting warm."
He looked down at himself, expecting to see blood. He'd shed so much blood already. Could they not see it? But no, his hands were clean. They shouldn't have been clean. He'd shed too much blood not to have any on his hands.
"Whenever you're ready, sweetheart," Isabela drawled, winking at him. "You know I'm always glad to take your money."
"You're always glad to take everyone's money," Sebastian remarked dryly, cocking an eyebrow at the pirate.
Merrill rearranged the cards in her hand. "Well, she is frightfully good at it, isn't she?"
Isabela tossed Merrill a wink. "Lots of practice, kitten. Lots of practice."
"Too good for it to be just practice," Aveline grumbled, tapping her fingers on her mug of ale. Isabela snickered.
It took more effort than Fenris would have expected to push to his feet and walk the short distance to the waiting chair, but once he took his seat, warmth began edging in around him. He picked up his cards — an excellent hand — and sipped from his glass — an excellent vintage. He relaxed into comfortable warmth as the dreams of Danarius and the small child with the wide green eyes faded.
The banter wrapped around him like a blanket, fading into a fuzzy blur of sound. Hawke refilled his glass, over and over again. When he looked up to find it full once more, he took it into his hand and drank deeply, feeling warmth cascade down his throat as he looked around the table.
But something wasn't right.
"Someone is missing," he murmured, narrowing his eyes and trying to focus on each face, trying to pick out who wasn't there. There was an absence, he was sure of it.
Varric heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes. "You know Blondie, Broody. He's in a mood. Didn't feel like coming."
Sebastian snorted and rearranged his cards. "Hardly a surprise."
"When isn't he in a mood these days?" Isabela asked, making a face.
"It wouldn't be so dreadful if it wasn't always such a bad mood," Merrill said glumly.
"Better he's not here," Hawke said, tossing in her bet. "I'm not fond of the games he's been playing lately."
"No," Fenris heard himself saying. "They won't end well."
Aveline scowled, shaking her head. Fenris didn't think the frustration was because of her hand. Sometimes he forgot she had once been married to a templar. He knew he was not the only one glad of the missing face over Wicked Grace.
He sat back and tried to be satisfied. It was true, the mage was nowhere to be seen, but there was something more. Something else, and it was pulling at him. But the velvet warmth of wine tickled the edges of his mind.
Someone was missing. A mage.
Did it matter? Fenris wasn't certain it did. He took another drink and felt himself slip further into surcease. What was one mage, more or less?
"Your bet, elf." Varric's voice pulled his attention back to the table. Fenris squinted at his cards but couldn't read them. Finally he gave up and tossed coins onto the pile. It didn't matter; Isabela was going to win the hand anyway. She always did.
They played round after round. Fenris lost count of the bottles he drank. The pile of coins on the table in front of him shrank. The fire was too hot, and the breeze blowing through the open window was too cold. "But Hawke," he found himself saying, almost remembering, "where is…"
"Long day, Fenris?" she asked, brow furrowed in mild concern.
Endless.
"Shall we make this the last round then?" Her voice was soothing. Kind.
He didn't deserve her kindness.
He nodded as much as he was able; his neck was oddly stiff. It took a great deal of effort. Too much. He gazed longingly at his half-full wine glass, but knew his limbs would never cooperate enough for him to actually lift it.
"Then you can head home and get some rest," Hawke said softly.
"Right, just Broody and the corpses," Varric said on a laugh. Then he scraped all his coins toward the already-large pile in the center of the table. "All in?"
Everyone went all in. Fenris blinked down at his own tiny pile of coins. All he had to do was push them.
"All you have to do is push them," Hawke insisted.
His head was too hot and his fingers too cold. He blinked, and the table took too long to right itself. His body refused to obey him; blinking took more energy than he could easily spare.
But he jumped when the cat landed in his lap. It was small and slender, mottled grey and white. When it balanced on its hind legs, front paws on Fenris' chest, he saw its eyes were a bright, somehow intelligent green.
Green.
The sky was blue, bluer even than the healer's robe.
Her eyes were so green.
"What's going on?" Hawke asked, not quite able to hide her disappointment. "Fenris, there's no time. We have to finish the game. Everyone's gone all in."
The cat's razor-sharp claws dug into the flesh of his chest, just over his heart, the sudden pricking pain slicing through the drowsy warmth of wine. He blinked and lifted one hand, surprised how much effort it took, how heavy his own limb was. He ran his hand down the cat's spine as its claws dug deeper. The pain was different, somehow, from the crushing pressure of wine and warmth — this was sharper, clearer, chasing away the heaviness that had only moments before threatened to overwhelm him.
An icy wind blew in through an open window, chilling him even as it made the fire in the hearth leap and dance, putting off even more heat.
"Someone close the sodding window," Varric groused. "Come on, Broody. We've gotta finish the game. Can't finish it without you."
Fenris looked up and frowned at Varric, trying to piece together what the dwarf had said, but he only looked back at Fenris, fingers tapping impatiently against the table.
"It's not polite to keep a lady waiting," Isabela murmured, winking at him. "Put in your coins and we'll finish up."
"Come on, Fenris," Aveline sighed, knocking back the last of her ale. "We haven't got all night."
"It's that sodding cat," the dwarf grumbled. "Someone get rid of—"
The cat removed its claws from his skin and turned around in his lap, fluffing up to twice its size as it flattened its ears against its head and hissed.
Another icy blast came from the open window and snaked down the back of his neck as the fire burned hotly in the hearth, basking him in heat. Ice and heat both sank into his flesh, flooding his veins, pushing away the comfortable warmth and leaving only the thrum of something at once too cold and too hot, and it hurt.
Someone was missing.
The cat looked back at him, blinking wide green eyes as ice and heat warred beneath his skin, pushing — always pushing — pushing away the contentment, the blur of wine and company, the promise, the escape, the release of it all.
The Hanged Man grew blurry as the corners of his mind grew sharp, everything thrown into sudden focus, too bright, too clear, too sharp—
Sharp like cat's claws digging into his skin.
He pushed to his feet, clutching the cat against his aching chest. "Someone is missing," he ground out. It hurt to stand, and he barely believed he could with the fire and ice pulsing, pushing through him.
"No one is missing," Sebastian told him, but his blue eyes were hard. Too hard.
The healer's robe was blue. Bluer than the sky.
"Sit down, Fenris," Hawke soothed. "Sit down and finish the game. It's almost over. It's almost ended."
Red blood spattered against blue robes.
"I will not. I must go." He turned and staggered toward the door, holding the feline close, bearing it like a shield. "I must find her. I must look."
"Who?" cried Hawke, standing up and knocking her chair to the floor. "Who are you looking for? There's no one there. You can't—"
—her eyes too wide, too bright with tears as her lips formed his name—
The rest of Hawke's words were lost as the door to The Hanged Man slammed once more behind him, sending him tumbling into darkness. When he landed, he fell hard on his forearms and his whole body ached with the impact. He lifted his head to find the cat sitting primly in front of him, its tail curled tightly around its body. It meowed once.
The sky exploded. A sheet of fire—fire, but not fire, so much worse than fire—expanded through the air, like the rings left when a stone was thrown into a pond.
Arms reached down, tugged him to his feet. Hawke looked sad and serious, her eyes filled with shadows. "Are you coming?" she asked. "You don't have to. You've fought a good fight. We can handle it from here."
He tried to shake his head, but his neck was so stiff. The little cat wound its way in and out of his legs. Hawke didn't seem to notice. She was already looking past him, toward the ever-spreading pool of fire in the sky. They were at the docks, somehow. He didn't remember moving. Hadn't they been at The Hanged Man?
Hadn't someone been missing?
Hawke let go of his arms, stepping backward into the boat to the Gallows. Everyone else was already in it. No one looked at him.
No, not everyone. Someone. Someone wasn't there.
He looked behind him, forced to twist his shoulders as his neck ached and fought the movement. Fenris was sure what lay behind him ought to have been exactly what lay in front of him—red skies filled with so much falling ash, screams filling the air—but that was not the case.
"Haven't you fought long enough, Fenris?" Hawke asked. She didn't sound quite like herself.
The skies were blue—bluer than the healer's robe—dotted with white clouds, and the grass soft and green—greener than her eyes?—that went as far as he could see, stretching into rolling hills darkened in patches with dense woodland. Only a blurry trail in the soft grass, bruised and worn down, indicated the path of those gone before him. Fenris did not know where it led; nowhere, perhaps. Or everywhere. Anywhere he needed to be. He stared hard at the blue sky with its white clouds, stared hard at the green grass and rolling hills and the gently worn path.
He'd fought long enough.
He turned again. The boat bobbed impatiently on the choppy water. A cold, wet breeze brought with it the sounds of clashing swords, of bellowed orders, of battle.
The cat meowed, paused, tilted its small head at him, and leapt into the boat after Hawke.
No. He had not fought long enough. Steel clashing, grinding against steel, called to him, pushed him forward. One unsteady step after another, Fenris' feet echoed hollowly along the boarding plank until he stood upon the deck with the others, bouncing and bobbing with the waves. Hawke said nothing; she looked over his shoulder, her expression inscrutable.
"You have my blade, Hawke," he reminded her.
The unreadable look shifted suddenly, brightly into one of Hawke's most brilliant smiles. She reached up and clapped him companionably on the arm. Her hand was warm. "Always glad to have you."
He reached up, fingertips brushing the Blade of Mercy upon his back. "Whatever you need, I am ready to assist."
