My heart is wild, and my bones are steel

My heart is wild and my bones are steel; I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free

[spiritflux]

My heart is wild & my bones are steel; I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free

Independent, selective blog for Fenris from Dragon Age II. Written by Fen, she/they, 25+ NSFW themes

Read me first

Available verses, open to all fandoms

[skyheld]

Parricida. Tevinter, then, the Venatori --- a slave, but perhaps one raised high enough to believe he wasn't a slave, or else he had some other reason to fight for them with such blind devotion as this. He wielded his blade with expertise, but he was foolish --- reckless --- striking furniture instead of flesh like he had eyes for nothing but Gatt. That was a mistake. The moment the blade got stuck Gatt moved in for an attack of his own, aiming to split the assassin in two before he had a chance to free his weapon. He didn't want to kill a slave, but so be it. He didn't want to die either.

He didn't want to die. Strange how quickly that had changed. At Adamant, in the Fade, Stroud had pulled him out of the Rift while Hawke stayed behind because nothing, no argument or plea, could make him decide who of them should sacrifice themselves when Gatt wanted it so desperately. Damn the world, damn the fact he was the only one who could save it --- in that moment the end had stared at him with its many twitching eyes and Gatt had been glad for it. He wanted it to be over. That was all he cared about.

Now he faced a death far less terrifying. The elf was intimidating, but he was no nightmare demon. Dying to him would be easier than dying to Fear itself, and yet Gatt would fight it with everything he had. He had the advantage of a more level head for once---

At least, it seemed for a moment he had the advantage. A slightly longer reach, a sword that wasn't currently stuck in a bureau, and he had gotten a glimpse of how the other elf moved before he went in for his own attack. Then there was a light --- a blur --- and a hand that hadn't been there before, that couldn't be there, solidified around his throat.

Shit.

Shit.

Varric had mentioned him. An elf, a former slave, no mere warrior but one empowered with lyrium to turn him into some kind of half-ghost, able to phase through objects, to tear hearts out of chests. Against abilities like those, a sword wouldn't be enough.

But Gatt didn't only have his sword.

His sword clattered to the floor, too large to be turned against someone so close, and instead his left hand came up behind him. Power surged through it, tugging on its tendons and coarsing through the skin: the raw power of the Fade, hated and feared, but he needed it now. The Veil shimmered, cracked. Behind the other a rift opened, pulling, tearing him towards it.

"I didn't ask Hawke to sacrifice himself", he gasped, his voice nearly choked by the fingers around his throat. "It was his choice. You have a problem with that, take it up with him."

[spiritflux]

Considering how often Fenris relied on his brands as a hidden ace up his sleeves, he shouldn't have been surprised that this Inquisitor had one too.

Shouldn't have been, but he was.

He felt it before he saw it: That tug of raw mana on his brands, the ripple of power through the room like a magnet against his lyrium. And then green light washed through the room, casting everything in the sickly glow of the Fade. Fenris's lips curled back, baring inhuman fangs and a vicious snarl, and he spat in Gatt's direction.

And then he was being wrenched backwards.

Not by the Fade, but by several pairs of hands. The guards, it seemed, had caught up with him.

Lost in his fury, his grief, he was barely aware of the chaos around them: the crackle of the Fade, the clear-crystal pitch of his lyrium, the shout of guards. Varric's voice in there, somewhere, placating and apologising. It didn't matter though, did it? Whatever came of this, Hawke was still dead. Hawke was still dead and either Fenris was going to join him, or someone was going to pay for the injustice.

Someone grabbed his wrist, wrestled one arm behind his back. Grounded their weight behind him and Fenris knew this move, knew that next would come a shove to the back of his knees and then he'd be face-down on the floor.

Determined not to be incapacitated, his brands flared. His wrist slipped free, his body stepped out of the hold, and—

Something struck him in the back of the head, and everything went black.

[skyheld]

The trek back from Adamant had been slow and strange. Cassandra had suggested the Inquisitor and his closest circle should journey ahead. There were things to be done back home, and no reason for the Herald (he was, of course, still the Herald even though she knew as well as he did now the title had always been false) to be slowed down by footsoldiers, supply wagons and cattle. Gatt had refused. For once he'd not wanted to stay as far away from the soldiers who looked up to him --- worshipped him, in their own words --- as possible. For once he wanted to be next to them, leading them back to Skyhold.

If Cassandra though he was finally accepting his role as their leader, she'd be disappointed. But those people, who weren't his and never would be, had died in his name. It had never been so clear as at Adamant. Whatever he thought, they thought themselves his soldiers. He couldn't just abandon them.

Once back at Skyhold, he shut himself in his room. The Iron Bull dragged him out to spar occasionally, before restlessness drew him up the walls, and he came out for the occasional meeting in the war room when Cassandra threatened to take the meeting to him if he refused, but aside from that --- nothing. Cullen said he thought Varric wanted to talk to him. Talking to Varric was the last thing Gatt was planning to do. Hawke was dead because of him. He wasn't going to torture Varric with his own face after that.

One week. Two.

The door slamming open was like a thunderclap, splitting his thoughts open all the way down to the skull.

Gatt had always known they would come for him. He didn't know who they were, and it didn't matter --- be they Chantry or Orlais or Tevinter or the Venatori, or some shadowy organization none of them even knew about, they would come and they would do their best kill him and the only thing he could do was be prepared. He had known since back in Haven it would happen, felt them watching, half-seen them slipping around corners, and the walls of Skyhold had only made him feel marginally more safe. Walls would make it harder for them to kill him. They'd make it take more time. They wouldn't be able to prevent it.

And now, finally, they were here.

And the first thing he felt was relief. Relief coupled with a mad scramble to get his greatsword out of its scabbard and the desk between him and the assassin, gaze darting quickly around the room to check if more were coming from the balcony, yes --- but still relief. They were here. He didn't have to wait anymore.

He'd been right.

And it was just the one. There were none slipping in from the balcony doors, none coming up the stairs --- the thundering feet far below were from his own guards, by their shouting --- it was just the one assassin. That was almost laughable. He did laugh. Panicked, relieved, crazed laughter --- finally, finally, FINALLY.

It was fitting. Horribly so. Hawke had died to he could live and now they were coming to kill him as Gatt had always known they would. There'd never been a point, had there?

"Yep. Me." He lifted the sword. It looked deceptively heavy, like he wouldn't be able to wield it effectively, but he did --- the sword was lighter than it looked, and Gatt stronger. Still, he was at a disadvantage. Stiff and slow by days of inactivity and too little food, and out of his armour. And the other....

Yes. Terrifying was the right word. Gatt was just beyond terror.

"You want to tell me what shitty fucking organization sent you or just go straight to trying to kill me?"

[spiritflux]

Laughter.

Of course it was laughter.

In his maddened, grief-stricken state, Fenris expected no less. This was the monster who had abandoned Hawke to the fade. The monster who had probably not even spared a second thought before turning and saving their own fucking life.

Well, little good it would do him now. Fenris was going to send him to meet the Maker and then the guard would probably kill him and this would have all been a horrible, pointless waste of life. He looked this... Inquisitor... up and down as he approached, making a quick read of him: an elf, taller than him (just by a touch), and one who wielded a blade just as tall and heavy as his own. He'd have a longer reach, then. But his position behind the desk would give him little chance to make the first swing, and Fenris could practically taste the warm blood beneath his soft, unarmoured skin.

It was all the space for thinking he had left in his mind. Any other day he would have assessed the room, the space, his opponent, in any greater detail - but the voice in his head screamed for vengeance and he could see nothing beyond his target.

Vengeance.

And then death.

And then...

Lethendralis came free from its sheath and he gripped it with both hands. Threw himself forward, the great blade swinging with a horrible, whirring sound.

"You know who sent me, parricida!" His voice was a wrecked, bestial thing. Ruined with grief and raw with fury. The blade came down - the heavy inevitability of the executioner's axe - but the study was too small for such a weapon. The end struck a bureau halfway through its swing, burying itself deep - jerked Fenris to a halt and lost him his momentum.

Grief was enough of its own momentum.

Abandoning the blade, those great white tattoos blazed with blue light. He phased through the desk, through the Inquisitor's own sword, and when he solidified again it was with a hand thrust hard against the man's throat, squeezing with a trembling sort of fury.

"Hawke sends his regards," he snarled. "I pray he died faster than you will."

[spiritflux]

@skyheld

Six weeks.

Six weeks, and Fenris’s heart still felt as raw as the day that he had received Varric’s letter.

He didn’t remember reading it, although the words were burned into his mind. It had ended up in the fire. Yet still the words haunted him:

Hawke is gone.

Hours had turned into days turned into weeks turned into a month, and even the slog through rain and snow and mud to reach Skyhold had not numbed the pain. He did not remember any of it: there must have been companions on the road, the occasional bed in some tavern, but it was just… a blur of numbness. Of tears and anger and a keen sense of loss unlike anything he’d known before.

Hawke was dead. Hawke was dead, and Fenris did not know how to live without him.

He recalled the words he had once told him: I cannot bear the thought of living without you. A simple sentiment at the time, spoken in the spur of the moment on the eve of battle, but only now did he realise the true meaning of his words. He could not bear this. Hawke was gone, and—… without him, there was no purpose anymore.

No purpose, but he did want answers. Wanted to know what cause Hawke had deemed so important to die for. Wanted to know what form of a person could be so incompetent that they had been responsible for the death of the greatest man Fenris had ever known.

And so he had gone to Skyhold. Dragged his way through Nevarra and the Waking Sea and the Frostback mountains to demand an account of what had happened from the person who had done it.

Oh, he was aware of the buzz that his appearance caused. The road-dirtied elf, armoured and armed, grief-wild and ready to fight the guards who tried to stop him at the gates. He was aware of the mutters that followed him. Of the way that Varric appeared (always the master of timing, weren’t you, you bastard) to command others to give him passage.

There was a woman - Montilyet, he thought he remembered her saying, who tried to keep him at bay. The Inquisitor is busy. The Inquisitor is in a meeting—

The Inquisitor.

Fenris wondered if this enigmatic leader knew what they’d done. What they had taken from the world.

Montilyet couldn’t stop him. Varric knew better than to try. Fenris could deduce where to find this Inquisitor only by the increasingly frantic way in which his mad progression was blocked, and with no regard for those who tried to stop him, he shoved open the doors to the Inquisitor’s study. They bounced off of the walls - loud, startling - and he revelled in the sound of it. It gave him the moment to take in the sight of the person who had taken his heart from him.

He must have been a sight: filthy from the road, the shaved sides of his hair unkempt and unmaintained. Lyrium-burned skin flaring furiously, one hand reaching for the hilt of the huge blade slung across his back.

He didn’t care how he looked.

He hoped it was terrifying.

“You—!”

[spiritflux]

Fenris returns!

So it's been a hot few years, but I'm back! I'm eager to bring Fenris back to Tumblr and find some new writing partners/reconnect with some old ones if they're still out there.

Here are my existing verses - they haven't been updated since I was last here and I'm absolutely up for new ideas. If you're after a new partner (I'm not too shabby a writer, I promise) please hit me up!

[spiritflux]

Iudicatum // Lyna & Fenris

[spiritflux]

ghilannainguideme‌:

The hearth behind Lyna shed powerful, comfortable warmth over her back, and she let the simple pleasure of it occupy part of her mind as she waited for Fenris to assemble his response. Her eyes flicked down to the movement of his hands, his cracked knuckles and callused fingertips, bronze skin pierced with lyrium as bright as a full moon. The fire threw red-gold light over everything in the room except for those rivers of silver, which gleamed as bright presently as they did in the dark of night. 

From those markings, somehow, came his peculiar ability, not quite magic–to reach through solid objects, to call forth supernatural strength and speed. It was, perhaps, one of the only things about him that still made her wary. And Danarius had intended to give this power to her, as well? She could only wonder–at what cost?

“If that is his plan, we have little to fear,” she replied, though in spite of the confidence in her words, she frowned. There must be something that she was failing to understand, if Fenris remained so anxious at the prospect of the magister’s inevitable assault. To attack without a force that could lay siege, to expect to be allowed to walk through her gates–surely Danarius wasn’t so foolish. “I’ve read of Tevinter forces thousands strong, building towers on wheels, or digging under walls. Instead, you believe he’ll ask me politely?”

There was something that Lyna was failing to understand. She was a fearsome warrior, yes, and well-deserving of her rank, but she had not spent the majority of her life at the side of a man such as Danarius. She was approaching the problem like a soldier, thinking in troop movements and siege tactics. What she failed to understand was that some men did not need armies or fortresses; all they required was a gentle word, a simple gesture, and a dram of poison.

And what better poison than a lifetime of kind cruelties? At his heart, Fenris knew what the Magister’s play would be. Danarius knew Fenris as intimately as Fenris knew his former master, after all. He knew that Fenris’s noble spirit, his imagination, and the years of learning Danarius’s cruelty would be his downfall.

Yes, Danarius could rally troops against the Keep. But he could also linger, calm and patient, at the corner of Fenris’s attention. Let Fenris grow fond of the Grey Wardens. Let him start to wonder just who of these new friends Danarius would torture and how he would do it. And with time, with persistence, he wouldn’t have to come in for Fenris.

Fenris would go to him. And both of them knew it.

But he said nothing of this, because he knew that Lyna could never understand. Not when she hadn’t spent years at his side, watching him take down his political enemies with honeyed words and poisoned wine. No; he’d wait, and let himself play this particular game. Maybe one day he’d even win it.

“He will ask nicely,” he repeated slowly, pressing a thumb across his knuckles. Because he wants me to actually see him. Because he wants me to picture him every time I walk the halls he has walked. “And then again. And again. He knows what he is doing.”

[spiritflux]

Iudicatum // Lyna & Fenris

[spiritflux]

ghilannainguideme‌:

The memories were as clear as if they were days old, not months–the cell that Danarius had locked her in, and the look in Fenris’s eyes as she had planted the seed of rebellion with her words. Neither of them could have known at the time what it would lead to, and she certainly hadn’t thought it through beyond getting the two of them out, let alone that he would fight alongside her as a Grey Warden. 

Lyna had no doubt, based on what the messenger had said, that Danarius was in Amaranthine. The options, in her mind, were two: let Danarius come to them, or find him first. “We could locate him and attack where he’s hiding, but that risks innocent lives. If we let him come to us, it gives him time to prepare, but it gives us fortifications, supplies, possibly reinforcements from outside.”

She envisioned the keep itself, how the mountains protected its northern side and limited the directions from which an attack might come. But even if they knew it was coming, it did them little good without knowing what it might entail.

“Has he laid siege to castles before?” she asked. “What kinds of forces does he command?”

Fenris did not respond instantly. He gave the question due thought, for it was not an idle one and nor would the answer come without repercussions. His feet drew back in from where they’d stretched to the fire, bare toes curling against cold stone, and as he rested his elbows on his knees he ran his thumb over the tips of his fingers, feeling out the ridges and cold thrum of the lyrium buried there. Whichever way they went about it--go to Danarius, or let him besiege the Keep--there would be casualties. Lyna might reassure him that killing Danarius was ultimately ridding the world of an evil, but he still felt the weight of responsibility for having brought the man here.

“He has no great forces,” he said eventually, thought lending a heavy weight to his voice. “He is a scholar, not an Imperator. But he has money, and influence, and he will have hired skilled hunters, much like the one we killed the other night. Of those... I cannot guess at numbers. Maybe twenty. Thirty. But.”

He shifted then, straightening his spine to look at her. In the firelight, his eyes caught gold. “He does not need an army, Commander. He is a fearsome threat even alone. He will walk in here under the pretence of social propriety and he will ensure that he leaves with exactly what he desires.”

[spiritflux]

Iudicatum // Lyna & Fenris

[spiritflux]

ghilannainguideme‌:

“We could go back,” she mused, her posture relaxing little by little, eyes no longer on Fenris but following a pair of Wardens as they exited the hall’s double doors. Here, she was in her element, at ease among kind if not exactly kin, but the suggestion of returning to Orlais dredged up cold thoughts–so many days in a dark cell, the snake-oil of Danarius’s voice, the gashes on Fenris’s back from whatever torment had finally caused him to flee.

But Danarius would be dead soon, and Creators knew that the elves there deserved recompense for the trouble she’d caused. 

“Once this matter is done, anyway.” Finally, she turned her eyes back to him. “The alienages are complicated, in Orlais as here. They’re free under the law, but not protected by it. They need allies who can protect them, or help them protect themselves.”

It wasn’t the first time that he’d thought about returning to Halamshiral since he’d left. But it was the first time that he’d thought about it and not felt the fist of fear clench itself about his gut. After all, what was there to be afraid of anymore? Danarius wasn’t there to torment him; he was here, perhaps holed up only a stone’s throw away from the Keep in Amaranthine. And by the time that they were genuinely free to think about travelling... 

If they were lucky, Danarius would be dead. It was a hope he’d never once allowed himself to have.

But with his once-master no longer a threat looming over him, what was to stop him from returning to Orlais? With his Commander’s approval, that was. He’d made the promise to serve the Wardens with the same dedication that he’d once served Hawke, and though the temptation to take his own path was strong, he drew a deep breath and reminded himself of his obligations to Lyna.

“We shall discuss it once Danarius is dealt with,” he said carefully, mulling over their options. And on that thought: “What is our plan? Now that his messenger and offer has been dismissed, no doubt the next visit will be a personal one.”

[brightflight]

only when you fall || hawke & fenris

[spiritflux]

brightflight:

“I fought,” she said in a quiet, weary voice, “so fucking hard to come back to you. Because I know that. I know that, and I love you, too.”

She had fought and bled and stumbled through that timeless place, aching to return to him. The moment it had occurred to her, in the Fade, that he thought she was dead… that was the moment she had almost broken. None of the place’s other horrors had been able to, but that one realization had come nearer than anything else in her life ever had.

“I had to know you were alive,” she said then, thinking back to the look of pure wounded betrayal he’d worn when she had shoved him backward into the arms of the Inquisitor and Varric. They’d dragged him back out of the Fade with them, and hadn’t let him stay to die with her. Because she’d asked them to. Because she’d betrayed his trust in her. “I had to, can’t you understand? I couldn’t have done what I did if you were there. I had to… I had to be fighting for you.” She shook her head wearily against his hard chest, just a weak little hint of a gesture. “I couldn’t watch you die. Not you. No you, too.”

Her eyes slid shut, lashes still wet and clinging together. “I’d have died with a laugh in my throat if it meant you had a chance to live. I would always die for you, Fenris, my Fenris. You deserve that chance.”

Her fingers tightened their grip on his tunic and she sighed. “I’m all out of witty jokes. I’m all out of strength, too. All I have to offer you now is what’s always been underneath them. If that’s… if that’s not enough for you now….” She trailed off, shaking her head again.

If it meant you had a chance to live. 

Her words struck him through with guilt. She had given so much to ensure that he made it out of the Fade, and he... how had he repaid that? By lashing out at the friends that they had made together? By pushing people away? By... By trying to die, alone this time, simply by neglecting to care for himself in his grief? As if killing himself on a blade was shameful but simply wasting away to nothingness... wasn’t. Like it was the easier way out.

It had been the easy way out. Easier than grieving for her; easier than trying to imagine a future without her in it. A life could not be so easily rebuilt when the foundations had been taken away.

These thoughts lay heavy in his mind, but he did not speak them out loud. These things she didn’t need to know. She had been through enough; let her be spared the realisation that he had fallen apart without her, that her sacrifice had almost been for nothing. It would bring her unnecessary hurt and he... he was too ashamed to admit it, how easily he had been struck down and succumbed to his grief.

And so he studied her instead of speaking, drinking in the sight of her; the familiar downturn of her eyebrows, the unfamiliar new angles of her bones. The new scars, the purple shadows beneath her eyes. Her and not her. Each one a result of her protecting him. Oh, how heavy the guilt weighed.

He bowed his head, and pressed his lips to her hair. “I do not stand by you for your jokes,” he murmured against her, voice heavy with utter emotional fatigue. “That is. Your jokes are a part of you, but not everything. I follow you no matter what, Hawke. Tired, hurt, angry, upset... I am by your side. That has not changed.”

[brightflight]

Massive Head-Trauma Bay

[spiritflux]

brightflight:

“Yes,” Hawke said quickly. “Yes, I can. I’m not hurt.” Abruptly, she became aware of just how much blood was on her and hastened to add, “None of this blood is mine.”

She had only the vaguest memories of the last few minutes, really; the dance of death had blurred together into a smear of imagery, flashes of distinct woodcut portraits standing out here and there from the fuzzed and hazy wash of the rest of it. Looking down at herself, at the sticky stains and gouts and great gobs of gore which covered her, Hawke decided abruptly that she had precisely no actual desire to remember the last few minutes with any more exactness. It was enough to know that she had… dealt with the matter, and they’d both survived it.

Releasing Fenris, she scouted about the area and found their things – armor, pouches, weapons – stacked nearby. As quickly as she could, Hawke strapped herself back into her armor and slung her belt, with all its clever little pouches full of clever little things, back around her waist. The borrowed daggers, she discarded with distaste. Yes, she could have sold them, but she had no desire to touch them again after the use to which she’d just put them. With her own blades a familiar weight on her back, she felt… steadier.

Hawke returned to his side quickly, reaching down to support Fenris as she attempted to – carefully – haul the injured elf to his feet as well. It was almost certainly going to hurt, but she couldn’t afford to be too gentle.

“We do have to hurry,” she told him. One very clear memory from the last few minutes had returned to her as she’d dressed quickly. “The mage. Cassander Argentus, or whatever the fuck he called himself. He wasn’t here.” Frustration ground her teeth together almost audibly. “I didn’t get him. We have to go, before he returns.”

An impatient sort of anxiety gripped her.

“Can you walk? Can you… your armor, your sword, can you carry the weight? I will, if you cannot. But we have to go, now.”

As Hawke left him to regather their belongings, he took the chance to regather his thoughts. His ears rang like a struck anvil, but with some carefulness he found his knees again, taking stock of his injuries. The cut on his arm stung, but it was practically inconsequential right now. His broken shoulder, inconvenient. He would never be able to carry Lethandralis out of here with only one working arm.

Yet what concerned him most was the state of his skull. His brain felt hot and tight, swollen, and it took twice as long as he liked to focus on anything. He was no stranger to concussion, but now was not the time and place to have it.

Determined not to let Hawke see his weakness—and weakness it was, if only he’d been faster, or stronger, or better—he sank his teeth into his tongue rather than make a noise when she hauled him to his feet, swallowing back a moan. Bad enough that she had to be the one to protect him. He wouldn’t let her know how badly he was injured as well. 

“Leave them,” he growled, taking an unsteady step forward. It pained him to think of leaving his belongings behind, but blade and armour he could buy again; his life he could not. Not if they were dead, and not if they were sold back to the Imperium. “I will return for them. And Argentus.”

[brightflight]

Massive Head-Trauma Bay

[spiritflux]

brightflight:

Hawke let the dead man – dead weight – slide off her blades and fall to the ground with a sodden sort of sound. Beneath his corpse, a seeping, slow puddle began to form, too much blood to soak readily into the packed dirt of the floor. 

She all but leapt across the intervening few feet to fall to her knees beside the wounded elf, wrapping an arm around his waist with care to hold him up. “Fenris!” she gasped, heedless of the blood that covered them both as she looked at him, seeing how slow his pupils were to respond, how ashen pale his deep olive skin had become. He looked not only injured but sickened, dark indentations below his eyes like thumbprint bruises. 

But he was alive.

Breath shuddering in her throat, she tossed her other arm around him and hugged him tight, pressing her face into his chest and closing her eyes. Her lashes would be gummed with sticky blood when she pulled away, but she was far beyond any ability to care. This was her fault. This was all her fault. She had brought him here, she had missed the damned clever little trap they’d laid for her. She had gotten Fenris injured, captured by Tevinter slavers, nearly dragged back into the tormented existence he’d fought so hard to escape.

“I’m so sorry, Fenris, I’m so sorry,” she said, the words muffled and half intelligible. 

The embrace was unexpected, but welcome. It was sturdy, something solid to grip onto when his whole body felt as though it was trembling like a leaf. He was not sure if it was his mind or his body that lurched so sickeningly, but he gripped her back with his good hand, breathing in the the scent of blood and filth and the distant perfume of her hair.

He did not know how long he held her for, but he was no more steady when he  drew away again, noting with some detached concern how much blood was on her face, her clothes, her hands. Whose blood was it? Theirs? Hers? He could not tell, and neither could he seem to focus on her closely enough to find out.

“It is no matter,” he muttered, unnerved by the fact that he should be more alert to their surroundings but couldn’t muster a single thought through the cloying fug of his mind. “We have to leave. Hawke. Can you stand?” 

No matter that he could not. If she could, she could still escape, get out of here... 

“Can you walk?”

[howeveryclever]

Gonna Leave Marks Somewhere [spiritflux]

[spiritflux]

howeveryclever:

Nathaniel couldn’t quite hide his grimace as he reached to take a sip from his goblet. “I was not ordered to, no, but it was my intention. I spent many years away from it at my father’s bidding. Now that my time is more my own, I try not to be absent for quite so long. My sister lives nearby.” Delilah was always pleased when he stopped by, as was his nephew. Though he did not regret his decision to join the Order he was becoming more and more aware of how short his time was among the living, and had promised himself not to waste any of it while he still drew breath.

He had hoped, too, to speak with Wystan, assuming the man had returned to Amaranthine. Conversing with the Warden Commander in letters was to the point but it lacked…. well, to put it bluntly, it lacked the chance for rebuttal. (Not that Wystan could always be moved, but sometimes Nathaniel wished they could have discussions in person instead of after the man had had long enough to become attached to his opinions.)

“I am not sure what the Wardens here intend to do,” he admitted darkly, lowering his voice just enough to keep their conversation a little more private. Nathaniel hadn’t made it a secret that he didn’t much enjoy the state Weisshaupt was in, but given his rank it was better to fight the battles he chose for himself than wind up in hot water because he couldn’t hold his tongue. “If you find yourself with idle hands there are always soldiers looking for sparring partners. From what I’ve heard you’re quite the skilled warrior.”

Fenris was not a proud man (not yet, not with freedom still so new to him), but even he straightened a little at the compliment. There were not a great many things about himself that he could confess to liking, but he was proud of his skill with a blade, and the thought that someone had noticed enough to speak of him to someone like Nathaniel flattered him somewhat. His ears flushed a pleasant shade of red, and he ducked his head in gratitude to the compliment.

“I have skill enough,” he agreed modestly, setting his food down to make a study of the man. He had seen him a number of times about the Keep, and could have confessed to having something of an admiring crush on him; Nathaniel Howe was a man of some notoriety, as fierce and proud as any, and could attest to no small amount of skill of his own when it came to shooting a bow. A bodyguard had no need for archery and thus Fenris had never been taught, but there was something so graceful about the art, so patient and calculated, that for a moment, he toyed with the idea of asking...

“I have not seen you in the training grounds here,” he commented, idly watching for the archer’s reaction. “I suppose, you do not spar yourself...?”

[spiritflux]

Much to Learn / Dorian & Fenris

[spiritflux]

spiritmarked:

Dorian laughed blithely and gestured with the hand not holding his cards. “Oh, the Inquisition,” he said, jovial and dismissive. It was shockingly easy to fall into this persona, to remember again what it had been like to be a man who cared for little but himself and his own pleasures and his own goals. Selfish, self-absorbed, pampered. He was, and had been, all of those things. Perhaps it had only been a sort of fever dream that let him believe he could have ever been anything else. 

“The Inquisition is a lot of running about the countryside killing people. Terribly messy business, overall. Do you know, they actually expected me to camp in the wilderness? Me?” He laughed again, eyeing the spread of cards on the table and discarding one from his hand, plucking up a card from the dealer’s pile to replace it.

“Honestly, the overall bloodthirstiness was nearly Tevinter of them; diverting, for a time,” he added as play passed to the woman sitting at his left shoulder. Dorian sipped his wine, quite genuinely enjoying that, if nothing else. He’d rather missed decent Tevinter vintages in the south; the occasional bottle turned up by the Inquisitor or procured through Josephine’s contacts had only whetted his appetite rather than satisfying it.

Leaning forward, Dorian snagged a ripe fig from the platter on the table and slit its purple flesh with a thumbnail, splitting the fruit to reveal the succulent deep pink-red flesh within. He bit with relish and chewed thoughtfully a moment. “It’s only to be expected, of course; the Inquisitor lived in Tevinter for a time, as I’m certain you know. She was married to Magister Navicularius; wasted on the lout, of course.”

“I recall her quite well,” Mela commented, the sour tone to her voice betraying just what she thought of the woman. “A less cultured creature I have not have the misfortune to meet. I was hardly surprised to hear that she had upped sticks and moved to the mountains, of all places.”

“Strategically sound, however,” Calvisius pointed out, idly thumbing through his own hand of cards. “A wise decision, seeing as she seems to be set on starting wars with every country out there.”

The pinched-faced woman made a noise of doubt, lifting her sharp eyes to Dorian’s face. “Surprising that she would allow you to return here, the number of Tevinter men she and her men have slain,” she commented, the inclusion of Dorian in that group going unspoken but clear. It had been some years since Dorian had returned to his homeland, and she was no doubt not the only one questioning the enchanter’s loyalties.

“Mela, please,” Calvisius chided her lightly. She had given him an ideal opening however, and he chose his next words carefully. “Lack of manners aside, our dear lady does have a point. What does bring you back here? If you’ll excuse the boldness of the question.”

[brightflight]

Massive Head-Trauma Bay

[spiritflux]

brightflight:

The sound of battle brought her head up. It had been so quiet, so hideously, deathly quiet, that the shouts and the scuffle were loud as a clarion – loud as the bells which tolled to call the faithful to Chantry services, or the horns which rang out the retreat upon a field of war. Hawke had heard those horns before, and she had let them call her away, to the retreat. She had run away that day, somehow finding her brother in the chaos, somehow managing to convince him to flee yet further – to their mother, and their sister, who needed them.

She did not retreat now, though visions danced blackly at the edges of her eyes, gibbering like contorted phantasms of the Fade… or like darkspawn, twisted and poisonous. She did run, yes, but toward the calls and shouts, not from them. It was Fenris’s voice she heard, Fenris crying out in pain and rage and fear; and all at once she could not bear to hear it. She barely knew the elf, and yet he was her friend and she would not let him suffer and die, not if she could prevent it!

She would not let him suffer and die, not when she had already waded hip deep in a roomful of blood to prevent it. She could not let that be for naught.

Her blades came up. Her blades came down. A man, who had not even seen her (as the others had not seen her), died (as the others had died).  A man, who was a monster. A slaver, as cruel and twisted in his soul as any Blighted thing. But still a man, she reminded herself as she twisted her borrowed blades and felt them scrape bone. Still a man, and the taking of his life should never become easy, nor enjoyable. She was a blade, she was a killing thing, but she would kill from close quarters and smell the blood as it coated her hands. 

Arrows made things too clean, too distant. She had hung up her bow when she had become a hunter of men, not bucks.

“You shall not touch him,” Hawke hissed into the dying man’s ear. “You shall not have him!” Her blades shoved deeper and one of them found his heart. With a last shocked gurgle, blood spilling over his lips, the slaver went limp as something fled his eyes.

Hawke’s intervention was perfectly timed. The appearance of another attacker was the distraction that Fenris needed to gain the upper hand on the man who was holding him. He reversed the blade in his hand and drove it backwards, feeling with satisfaction the way that the man jerked against him, the heat of the slaver’s blood blooming wet and sticky against his back.

He realised his folly only when the man, too injured to continue holding him up, dropped him. His own legs would not support him and he struck the ground with a yelp; his broken shoulder was agony, skull rattling where he had been struck by the slaver’s hammer. The same slaver who had been felled by Hawke’s knives and now lay dead-eyed across from him, leaking blood across the ground. Fenris’s own sword had fallen from his fingers when he hit the ground but he reached for it again now, doggedly wrapping his fingers about the hilt and dragging himself to his knees.

“Hawke,” he gritted out, vision swimming. “Thank you... Are you okay...?”

[brightflight]

Massive Head-Trauma Bay

[spiritflux]

brightflight:

It was easier even than she’d hoped.

The slavers were overconfident, probably too accustomed to handling beaten and broken captives with all the spirit and the will stripped out of them. Or perhaps it was only that they knew their current two captives were caged, and it never occurred to them that one of those captives always carried a makeshift lockpick with her. Or perhaps they merely believed their cavernous lair to be well hidden and impregnable.

Whatever it was, they’d only set two sentries, one at each tunnel exit to the main cavern complex. The rest of the slavers were rolled up in their blankets, snoring and grunting in their sleep like the animals they were. And the sentries, equally foolishly, both faced outward. Clearly they expected no threats from within, having underestimated the ingenuity of a determined Fereldan rogue. The two men died quickly and silently, her makeshift garrote first cutting off their breath and then cutting into their throats. The wire was slick with blood when she coiled it around itself and tucked it away into her sleeve.

One of the sentries carried a sword, which wasn’t of much use to her; but the other had daggers, and these she liberated from his corpse almost cheerfully. And from there it became even easier to move among the sleeping men and women with silence and with stealth, dipping the blades almost delicately into the soft places in their throats. They died without ever waking, and her hands grew as slick with blood as the wire had been.

It was so easy. Horribly, terribly, appallingly easy. She moved among them like death wearing flesh, and none of them ever knew it. None of them even had time to make a sound. None of them even saw her face. They just died. Quietly, and without ceremony.

Hawke was like quicksilver, like fog, moving silently and bringing death in her wake. Fenris watched her go with equal parts admiration for her skill and fear for her safety, but he did not move to intercept; Hawke knew what she was doing, and he trusted her. He surprised himself to realise that, but he did. He trusted her, and wasn’t that a new and pleasant feeling?

Leaving her to her trail of death, he lurched with considerably less finesse to where he had seen their belongings taken. His shoulder was aflame, the poisoned cut in his arm throbbing in time with his pulse, and he felt naked without his brands to protect him; felt more keenly than ever just how vulnerable he was without his ability to phase through whatever attack might come at him.

But determination carried him, and with blunt violence he snapped the neck of the first slaver dozing in front of the supplies. It was not a neat thing, the way that the man died, nor was it quiet, and the slaver’s companion shot awake with a startled cry, grabbing for a sword. Fenris dispatched of him too, though his attempt to disarm the man was a messy, scuffling thing, ended only when Fenris managed to grab a hold of the blade and drag them both to the ground where he could suffocate the man in the dirt. 

Breathless, ashen-faced, but a weapon finally in hand, he stumbled back to his feet, only to be floored once more by a blow to the back of his skull. The slaver hefted his hammer up for another swing and his companion grabbed the dazed elf, hauling him upright by the back of his tunic. Fenris made a noise that was half rage, half agony as he twisted and sank his teeth into the man’s arm, kicking out at the other, as fierce as a cornered rat despite the black spots that swam before his eyes. He was going to make it out of here, damnit; they both were, if he had any say in it...!

[brightflight]

only when you fall || hawke & fenris

[spiritflux]

brightflight:

She didn’t know how long she cried. It could have been minutes or hours. Void, it could have been days she spent there, curled against the warmth of his chest and shuddering, her face pressed to the increasingly damp fabric of his tunic. She cried until her throat ached, until her stomach hurt, until her temples throbbed. She cried until there were no tears left, and even then she gasped and choked as tears dried to salt upon her cheeks and in her lashes.

She cried each and every tear she hadn’t cried for years, all of them coming out in a pained torrent. She cried for Lothering, for Carver, for her mother. She cried for Kirkwall, for every single man and woman and child she hadn’t been able to save. She cried for Saemus, and for his father, and for the Arishok lying dead at her feet. She cried for Anders, for every soul lost in the conflagration he had made of the Chantry, and for Sebastian who had lost his family a second time. She cried for Varric, and for Fenris, who had thought she was dead.

At some point, Huan forced himself up onto the bed with them, nosing his heavy head up against her face and licking at her tears, a worried whine in his throat. Hawke threw an arm around her dog’s neck and held him there too.

Eventually, all her strength was spent, and all her tears were shed and dried. She could not bring herself to move, even then. It felt so good, curled against her Fenris with Huan beside them. It felt like every dream of joy she’d ever had. Except for her own weakness, which had never been a part of any of the demons’ temptations, she could almost fear herself still trapped in that place, never having truly escaped at all.

Finally, she shifted fretfully against him, wanting to see his face. Needing to. She still didn’t like that he had seen her like this – or that she had given in to this, that she was so damnably weak at all – but it was done, and she felt hollowed out, a bird’s egg blown clean with only the fragile outer shell remaining intact. 

“Fenris,” she said quietly. “Why?”

Why? 

He didn’t have an answer for that. Didn’t, really, even know what part of this monumental mess she was asking about—why had he not fought for her? Why had he left her here? Why had he, eventually, returned?

The only answers he had boiled down to one thing; his own selfishness. He had not fought for her because he had been too engrossed in his own grief to question if she might have survived. He had not returned after finding her here—alive—because he had been too wrapped in angst at his own bleeding heart to realise that her heart, too, was raw. 

And he had returned...

“Because I love you,” he said, his low voice aching. He wanted to look away from her, did not have the courage to meet her eyes, but he owed this to her; owed her his honesty, his belief, his adoration. His eyes were ringed with dark shadows of exhaustion, the unkempt ends of his hair long and bedraggled, but his eyes were unchanged from the ones that she knew best; ever that unfaltering shade of green, ever as intensely earnest. “You know this, Hawke. My heart has always been yours.”

[spiritflux]

Iudicatum // Lyna & Fenris

[spiritflux]

ghilannainguideme:

“I come and go as I please,” she replied with mild surprise of her own, though when she considered his observation for more than a moment, it made a kind of sense. No doubt he was used to going where he was told and there only, whether it was Danarius or Hawke who gave the orders.

As for Lyna, unless there was some unusually pressing need, her presence wasn’t strictly required at Vigil’s Keep most of the time. From what she’d known of Duncan, or seen of Wardens in other places, it was natural for them to travel—and fortunately, for the need to wander ran strong in her Dalish blood. She liked to be present among the friends and family that her Wardens had become, but her senior officers could handle most situations that might arise, and who above her in rank would keep a close eye on her whereabouts? The First Warden in Weisshaupt? Not likely.

“Though I’m in no hurry to return to Orlais,” she added, with what might have been a rueful curl of her lip, barely visible. “When I left for Val Royeaux, I meant only to observe.” How different–and, likely, how much easier–the last few months would have been, had she kept to her original plan. “I’d heard some news of the elves there and wanted to see for myself. But once I had seen it, how could I stand by and do nothing?”

“You are an admirable woman,” he said, with that frank, unashamed honesty that he bore. No point thinking a compliment and not speaking it, he believed; honesty was rare enough in this world without people holding their tongue on true words. “Most would hear of those troubles, and see it only as a reason to avoid the city. Not many care for the troubles that the Orlesians have created for their slaves.”

Settling himself on the bench, he stretched his feet out towards the fire, warming them with quiet contentment. Had he thought it possible, that they might rekindle their friendship like this? After the way that he had acted towards her, the stubborn attempts that he had made to cut his ties with her? 

“... I would like to return there,” he confessed after a moment. His eyes were lowered to his knees, as though he already knew that he would see rejection of the idea on her face and feared to confirm it for himself. “To Halamshiral. I have seen for myself what is happening there and they... require someone to fight for them. Someone who knows something of freedom already.”