#codex: fenris

[hisfavoritewolf]

"Man, why is Fenris looking over his shoulder all the time?"

"Man, why is he always acting like he's being watched?"

"Maybe it's because of the hunters, but he's like that even after Danarius is dead!"

Idk maybe its because MINRATHOUS HAS A PANOPTICON (also other various ptsd things)

[iamcole]

Varric: So, Broody. How tall are you?

Fenris: Hm... Around 6'1, 6'2?--

[Varric flinches]

Fenris: Are... Are you okay?

Varric: Yeah, sorry. I'm just afraid of heights

[Varric high-fives Hawke]

Fenris: Maker's balls...

[hisfavoritewolf]

Scars

Warnings: General harm, talking about abuse, whip lashes, scars, ptsd, implied past S/A

“You haven’t asked about them.” Fenris looked back at his partner. Moira Hawke, one of the few decent mages he’s encountered.

“The markings? I thought I had. You know, when we met? Not my best opening line.” She laughed.

He smiled softly, but it fell into a weary look. He shook his head, running his fingertips up his arm to his shoulder. He could feel where the skin grew back wrong. Scar tissue. They lay in lines across his back, broken by the lyrium that grew back over them.

“No,” he said, soft. “The scars. They’re... just as extensive as the lyrium.”

Moira took a moment, sitting up from where she’d been on the bed. She looked worried, which wasn’t the reaction he wanted. Then again, he didn’t know what he expected. He hadn’t meant to even say anything. He couldn’t help but talk about things with her, to tell her of his past. She made him feel lighter.

“I... I knew about the ritual, and that you were a slave. So, I figured...” She trailed off, not wanting to speak the awful truth. She could guess where most of them were from.

He leaned forward, his arms resting on his knees. “Most of them, yes...” He swallowed. Cleared his throat. He could never look at him when he spoke of his life. He could always see the hurt in her eyes, hurt on his behalf. He didn’t think he deserved that.

“Fenris?” Her tone softened. He could hear it. The pity. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to... But you might need to.”

Intelligent. That was one thing he loved about her. She was smart in ways he never could have fathomed achieving. He covered his face, sighing through his palms. He was trying to keep himself level, legible.

“It’s... I’ve been asked about them before,” He explained. “By less-than-ideal people. Well, I suppose Danarius was asked about them. He’d always say I was difficult to... train.” He adjusted himself again, wiped at the cold sweat on his forehead.

“I don’t know why I thought about them all of a sudden. Forgive me, I’ve been rather troubled.” He slicked his hair back and let the bangs fall back into place.

She knew better than to touch him, much less touch him when he couldn’t see her. Still, she reached her hand out. She caught herself, but it still made him flinch. His senses were so sharp it scared her, sometimes. She’d hate to have that turned on her, for him to lose it. For her to mess it up.

“You know you can always talk to me, love. I’m here for you. After everything that’s happened, I owe you one... Or ten.” She laughed quietly. Tried to lighten the mood. He appreciated the effort, and it was grounding him in a strange way.

“I know. It’s just hard to find the words, sometimes. So much has happened.” He took a shuddering breath and released it slowly. “It’s odd. Some of them are from Danarius, but more often than not? It was Hadriana. I suppose Danarius just liked making them special.” He shuddered, his fists clenched.

He could hear her shift, he could feel the anger coming from her. Somehow, it was comforting. He reached a hand behind him, searching for her. She obliged, carefully, and set her hand atop his.

His shoulders relaxed. “My feet are... The worst of them, I think. They were, ah, applied over time. Almost any time they had fully healed. They’d just start again. Until it no longer affected me.”

Moira was mortified. She knew they looked pretty bad, but she didn’t know why she didn’t question it before. Most elves walked barefoot, but from what she could tell they could still feel them. It made some things make sense. The way he constantly checked them, looking for any damage. He wouldn’t know, otherwise.

He continued. She gave him all the quiet she knew he needed. “The... violation I incurred... They effect me, still. Even the ones I don’t remember. For short moments I can see faces, but they’re lost before I can really see them.” He sighed. “I can’t tell if any of this makes sense. It hardly makes any sense to me, and I’m the one who was harmed.”

“It makes sense,” Moira reassured him. “You don’t need permission to feel whatever emotions you feel. No matter what anyone else tells you, you are free to feel.”

Free. Such a heavy word, such a heavy weight. He didn’t realize being free could feel so damning. In some ways he felt worse off than before. He tried not to think about that.

“Thank you.” Was all he said for a while. She wanted so badly to hold him, to tell him he was alright. That, however, would be a terrible idea.

“There’s so much. It all tangles together like so much rope. Twisted shackles.” He gripped her hand tighter. “Nausea, a pain in my jaw, the shadow of bars.” He strung words together as they came to him, a stream of consciousness from a dam only one woman could open.

He worried she would drown in his pain.

“I need... I need a moment. I’m sorry.” He stood and found his tunic, slipping it over his shoulders and closing the bottom three of the clasps. They hadn’t been doing much, simply basking in each other’s presence. He’d just go out onto one of the balconies.

She let him go. She knew when he needed to stop. She was going to help him process his life, one stream at a time.

[hisfavoritewolf]

Sad headcanons about the lyrium ritual! Sensitive content below.

This image is endlessly interesting to me because it means a few things about Fenris and the process of the ritual

1: If the markings get bad enough, even his tears will fucking glow. And for some reason it was coming out of nose?   1b: Which means that he was either internally bleeding, or he was so full of lyrium that it was Coming Out of Other Places. 2: His eyes turn entirely blue (at least the iris and pupils) 3: The markings look like they were burned on. Like how people use fire to make paintings on wood.   3a: Which also tracks with how the Red Lyrium one was made by using dragon fire. The comic doesn't show what magic was used on Fenris though, but he mentions in the comics that it was fire of some kind.

4: The process in general seems to have taken several fucking hours if not a whole day. I imagine it’s because;   4a: That's a lot of magic, so the mages casting it probably had to take breaks   4b: They would have had to use a lot of raw lyrium (which can also exhaust a mage if they take on too much lyrium) so the process would have probably involved only letting the lyrium melt into that 'ink' as the ritual progressed. Like if you had to keep a metal hot enough to melt and fed it through a tube.   4c: Fenris' markings are more precise, which leads me more towards the idea that it took longer. Danarius sr. would have taken his time.

5: We know from Dark Fortress that, at the very least, the Red Lyrium Boye could only die if you separated him from his weapon. Fenris can fight without his sword very well. I'm guessing Danarius jr. just didn't do enough research or safety precautions because he used a fucking dragon to even make the ritual work, not to mention work quickly if it took so long for Fenris. Which:   5a: Implies that Danarius jr. is shit at magic lmao   5b: Also explains why the guy was so flawed physically, and could be defeated too quickly. Never half ass something, Danarius jr. you little slimeball :)

[hisfavoritewolf]

Anonymous sent: ✘What is your worst fear that you would make absolutely sure to never come true?

(Wow u just went for the throat huh. Fuck, man)

The Truth || ACCEPTING

∵ ∵ ∵ ∵ ∵ ∵

“That is... Very specific.”

“I would say losing my control. I will never be under someone’s thumb again. I would rather die to prevent that fate.”

[hisfavoritewolf]

Can we all agree that it's just really cool that Fenris speaks fluent Qunlat???

I headcanon that he's also semi-fluent in French or whatever they call the Orlesian language.

I just think it's really interesting that he picked up Qunlat and regularly uses Tevene phrases. He's not just broody and depressing. He's smart.

[hisfavoritewolf]

Definitely Canon

Sebastian: What do you SEE in that man?

Hawke: :D

Fenris: ...

Fenris, shrugging: He makes me laugh

[hisfavoritewolf]

The idea of Leto and early Fenris having no emotion, passion, or enjoyment for anything but the second he figures out how to like and dislike things just- doing a 180 and being ULTRA passionate is everything to me.

He puts everything into what he's doing when he's interested in it. So much time to simply experience things was stolen from him that, now that he's free to think and act and be a person, he wants to experience as much as possible. He's such a determined person. He's a person now. And Maker help anyone who tries to take that from him or anyone else.

He will read pretty much anything he can find. He even reads Tevene history shit and compares it to Southern Thedas' history books, fascinated by the differences and the dogma and the fear mongering and the propaganda from both sides. He learns about the stars, about herbology, about poetry and the wonders of the written word. He soaks in every speck of beauty and majesty in the world that being a slave denied him. He allows the horrors in. He allows them to make him feel, because he's allowed to feel. It is his right to be horrified, enraged, disgusted by what happened to him. What was done to him, and done to many others.

He loves dogs and wine and a good meal. He gets excited (in his own way) about swords and tactics and other weaponry. He studies everything he can, enjoys everything he can, because he'll be damned if he freed himself only to still be a weapon. He is a person. His own person. And he's going to take it for all its worth.

That is what freedom is to him.