What he was didn't matter.
Tevinter was a nation of magic, and magic carried through blood in more ways than one. Elves were conquered so many centuries past, the spoils of war claimed as they always were with a discerning eye. One culture judged worthless, undone and replaced. The magic in their veins, however, that was worth keeping.
Elves could become magisters, could bed magisters. Forever foreign at a glance, forever doing everything they could to prove their devotion to the Imperium.
Some of the worst people he'd ever met had been elves.
The real question, the one that mattered, had always been who.
Fenris was not his name. Nonetheless, he used it and resigned himself to it the same way he'd had to resign himself to so many things.
He'd had to resign himself in mute submission to a leash, had to resign himself to being tugged or dragged and rubbed raw because it was better than being branded being frozen being forced to remember the flavor of lightning down his throat. To swallow. He'd had to resign himself to being stripped and displayed, to being a tool Danarius used to celebrate or reassure himself in moments of insecurity. For Danarius could not be weak when the gore-stained living lyrium he created, that he commanded, obeyed so very perfectly.
Fenris was a thing, a weapon of flesh and corrupted blood with nothing in his head. The parody of a vanquished god who offered no loyalty, who was to him a stranger he could not recognize if he wanted to. He kept the name because it was the only one he had, and maybe to remind himself that it hurt. That it should hurt.
That he would die before he accepted anything else from them.
Waiting was worse than fighting.
Waiting meant sleepless nights, starting at shadows and sudden sounds, suspecting every baker or innkeeper of ulterior motives. Waiting meant plans and struggling with how well he knew Danarius and how much smarter Danarius was and how futile his efforts to deceive or escape Danarius were but attempting both anyway.
If he was fighting he knew his own strength. He knew his opponent. Fighting was the death of uncertainty. Choices had been made, money spent, schemes set into motion. He didn't have to worry about what might be anymore.
Danarius was learning to be patient. There were a thousand rumors, a thousand threats, a thousand possible leads and possible traps. There were days when Fenris could only wedge himself into the corner of some cave halfway up Sundermount, sick and shaking, knowing if he was found like that his story would end. Even the middle of nowhere was a place he could be tracked.
So this time he made his own army. This time he found a dwarf with connections to Kirkwall's more successful mercenaries, and he threatened, and he lied, and he made himself watch these blind soldiers walk straight into Danarius' trap. Fenris watched, and Fenris knew he would not have escaped in their place.
No.
These were not soldiers. He had no army.
Killers or no, they weren't tools and they weren't expendable.
These were people. And he would not be someone who threw people away.
Their leader was called Marian Hawke.
She had a sharp face, short dark hair that would fit easily under a helmet. Blue eyes that seemed murky the way clouds fat with rain were murky. Her fairness was tempered by a tan, marking her as someone who spent most of her time outdoors. Coated in entirely too much blood but her lips were bare. When she smiled, she showed all of her teeth. If anyone was a wolf, it should have been her.
Her voice, however, was light. Lilting.
Like a bird.
"You didn't need to lie to get my help."
The comment catches him off guard, almost makes him falter. He wonders how much she would have charged him, how much Danarius would have bought her away for. Her face, before he remembers to look away, seems remarkably open in the moment. Her companions watch with similar scrutiny, but do not contest the point.
When Fenris takes up her offer, part of him expects it to fall apart. She has no reason to aid a fugitive worth more as property than he'd ever possessed himself. But she meets him at Danarius' mansion to kill his persecutors in what seems like an act of charity, and he imagines when she sees him her grin spreads just a little wider.
It is not a source of comfort.