Where Duty Lies: Chapter 15 - Missing
Title: Missing
Author: basbaker
Rating: M for some blood and gore
Word Count: 4926
Characters: F!Hawke, Fenris, Varric, Anders
Note: X-Posted to Muhrduhr
Despite the fact that it was late, Hawke and Fenris decided not to wait until morning before going to speak with Arianni. They had no worries about not being able to find her. Hawke was well known in the alienage for the part she had played in rescuing the elven girls from the slavers weeks before. Added to that, she had built a reputation for herself in Lowtown as someone who protected the innocent and the weak. While an elf might not normally hand out information on one of their own, not many would refuse to give Hawke an honest answer to her questions, especially when coins changed hands.
Within half an hour of leaving The Hanged Man, Fenris and Hawke stood at the door of one of the alienage's squalid residences. Fenris knocked, and after a moment the door opened a crack. Tilted green eyes peered at them suspiciously through it.
“What do you want?”
“Are you Arianni? My name is Hawke. I got your letter.” Hawke held up the paper where the elf could see it.
“Lady Hawke!” The door opened fully and Arianni stood back to let them enter. “Please come in. I'm sorry I didn't recognize you.”
They stepped into a home that was poorer even than Gamlen Amell's residence, and that was saying something. Though it was as clean as it could be, there was no disguising its state of disrepair, or the near absence of any comfort beyond a rough-hewn table and two chairs. A threadbare curtain that might have once been red partitioned off one small section of the room, and pallets were visible beneath its hem. Hawke looked the dwelling over in a glance, her features remaining free of the sudden sympathy she felt for the elf woman.
“You were probably expecting someone taller, or perhaps fire-breathing,” she said with a small, self-deprecating smile.
“The reality is frightening enough,” Fenris murmured in an undertone.
Hawke withered him with a look, then smiled at Arianni. “I was only joking, forgive me.” Arianni turned away to light one of the tallow candles, and when she turned back, Hawke stared in surprise. “But you're Dalish.”
Arianni smiled then, and the ritual tattoos that marked her shifted with the expression. There were many differences between city elves and Dalish elves, but most of them were not visible. The vallaslin, or blood writing, of the Dalish was the major exception. When a Dalish tribe member reached adulthood, the blood writing was done as a mark of their maturity. It was rare to find a Dalish elf in any city. Until Arianni, the only one that Hawke had seen was Merrill, and she had brought her to Kirkwall herself under very special circumstances.
“Yes, I am Dalish. Or I was. I've put that life behind me.”
“For this?” Fenris asked, his gravelly voice flat as he looked around the hovel.
“For Feynriel.”
“Your son,” Hawke nodded. “You said that he has gone missing, but I got the impression that there's more to it. If you can tell me what you know, I will try my best to help you.”
“I suppose I should start at the beginning,” Arianni said quietly, clasping her hands together and unconsciously wringing them.
“Feynriel's father is human. When I learned that I was pregnant with him, I left my clan to convince his father to take us with him. He's an Antivan merchant, you see, and often on the road. But Vincento had no wish to be burdened with a wife and child. I knew that my clan wouldn't accept Feynriel, so I came to live here, in the alienage.
“We did well enough, and at least it kept us together. But then, Feynriel started showing... signs. He has magic,” she said quietly.
Fenris snorted and moved away from the two women, back stiff. Hawke cast an irritated glance his way, then smiled reassuringly to the other woman. “It's alright. Despite how it seems, my friend here has not been above helping mages in the past. And neither have I. Go on.”
Flashing her a grateful look, Arianni continued. “I couldn't stand to lose him to the Circle, so I hid what he could do. Everything was fine until the last year or so. That was when he began having dreams. Such awful nightmares of demons whispering to him. He wakes from them screaming, terrified that they are going to claim him.” She shook her head, eyes filling.
Hawke reached out to clasp her hands, stilling their restless motions. Drawing strength from the simple contact, Arianni took a steadying breath.
“Instead of going away, the nightmares got worse. And he's becoming harder and harder to wake. I started to fear for his life, so I contacted a templar named Ser Thrask who was rumored to be kind to the mages, to ask him about putting Feynriel in the Circle, for his own good.”
“And what did your son think of this arrangement?”
“When Feynriel found out, he said that they would only make him Tranquil, and that he would rather die. And then he ran off. It's been two days, and I've had no word. I'm so afraid for him.”
“I will help in any way I can,” Hawke promised firmly. “Just tell me where to start.”
“All I want is for Feynriel to be safe, even if it means the Circle. As for where to start... his father Vincento has returned to town. He has a cart in the Lowtown Bazaar. I don't know if Feynriel would go to him, but it's possible. And Ser Thrask is looking for Feynriel, too. Perhaps he would share his information.”
“Don't worry, Arianni. I'm going to do everything in my power to find him.”
The Dalish woman smiled then, and the relief in it eased some of the lines of fear and worry from her features. “Thank you so much. I knew I could trust you.”
At that, Fenris turned back toward the room, looking between the two women. Your trust is given very quickly, woman, he thought. But after the acid look he had already received from Hawke, he didn't bother to give his opinion. It was only when they had said their goodbyes to a reassured Arianni that he spoke his mind.
“Another potential abomination. Don't we have enough trouble with that already?”
“This is different, Fenris, and you know it. Will you let your hatred of magic stop you from helping a terrified young man find some peace?”
“I said nothing about not helping,” Fenris told her sharply. “My only concern is how far you're willing to go to make him safe.”
“As far as I have to,” Hawke shrugged off the question.
Fenris stopped abruptly, grabbing her arm in a painful grip, pulling her around to face him. He scowled down at her from his superior height, everything about him suddenly tense and menacing. His eyes were seething green pools, and when he spoke to her, he bit off each quiet word.
“Will you be able to give this boy to the Circle, knowing that they will make him Tranquil? Will you be able to kill him if he's become an abomination? How far are you willing to go to make him safe, Hawke?”
Hawke went rigid as an answering anger shook through her. She took a deliberate step forward, her eyes narrowed dangerously on his. “As Far As I Have To. Now take your hand off of me. Unless you want a demonstration.”
Fenris's lips twisted on a smile completely devoid of humor. “Do you think that these markings are just for decoration? A bodyguard that cannot be protected from magic in Tevinter is useless to a magister. Do your worst, Hawke.”
Hawke felt power licking along her skin, building at just the thought of being summoned. Fenris's expression darkened and his lyrium markings began to shimmer blue-white. Their eyes stayed locked for a moment that seemed endless, but finally it was Hawke who backed down.
Her gaze dropped of its own volition to the silvery tracings of lyrium glowing at the elf's throat, and she felt her anger ebb as quickly as it had risen. The last thing she wanted to do was further fuel Fenris's distrust and hatred of magic, or of her. She couldn't believe she had let him drive her as far as he had. She felt sick and more than a little ashamed.
“No. I know they aren't decorations,” she answered quietly. “I'm sorry, Fenris. Magic has done enough to you - I won't add to that.”
“Keep your pity,” he growled, dropping her arm now as if it burned him. The glow had faded, only afterimages left in her vision. When he spoke again, it was without emotion. “Unless you intend to start searching for the boy now, I suggest we go back to Hightown. We can start at first light.”
When he saw her surprised look, his black brows lifted. “I told you I would help.”
“I thought you'd decided that I can't be trusted to handle Feynriel.”
“You thought wrong.”
~*~
When Hawke had first suggested speaking with Ser Thrask, Fenris had unequivocally dismissed the idea. It was too dangerous for her, he said, and not all the money and position in Kirkwall would save her if the templars decided she was a threat. With their confrontation the night before still fresh in her mind, Hawke had chosen to be diplomatic, arguing that it would save the two of them a lot of time if they knew up front whether or not Feynriel had already been found. She had even promised to leave her staff behind this once. Finally, Fenris had grudgingly agreed. And now they strode purposely through the courtyard, equally uncomfortable, but for different reasons.
The Gallows had been both a prison and a holding area for slaves during the reign of the Tevinter Imperium over Kirkwall. Executions had occurred hourly, usually for no better reason than to illustrate to those who were kept here how meaningless their lives were to their masters. Once the Imperium was ousted, the Gallows had been cleaned out. It had stayed empty for nearly two centuries, before the templars claimed it.
Now some said that the gallows was more a prison than ever, and it housed the most dangerous inmates of all - mages. Hawke could never come into this part of the city without a feeling of apprehension, whether she would admit it or not. The courtyard was always full of templar officers and recruits, usually acting as a not-so-subtle guard over the mages that occasionally left the tower to get some fresh air and exercise.
Not that Hawke would have chosen to walk around the Gallows herself. The entire structure and grounds still managed to convey a feeling of brooding oppression. Wrought iron bars filled many archways, giving even the stone alcoves around the great courtyard a grim look. Great bronze statues of slaves, abased and broken, adorned pedestals and hung affixed to the bleached stone walls. Worst of all were the friezes that depicted slaves in postures of fear and dejection, lorded over by the slavers that drove them. To Hawke, it was the most depressing place in Kirkwall.
In that, she and Fenris were in complete accord. He had no love for the mages and less sympathy. To him, locking them all away seemed the best solution for everyone. But even so, he admitted to himself that the Gallows was a miserable place for anyone to have to live. Every statue, every carving, was designed to impress upon a slave his utter hopelessness and lack of worth. The Gallows had been built to break slaves, and each time Fenris walked its stone streets, he remembered his life at the hands of Danarius and Hadriana. He remembered the time when he had felt worthless and without hope. It fueled his hatred and twisted his insides with anger and a pain that he refused to admit.
Intending to get their business finished as quickly as possible, Hawke greeted the first likely-looking young templar she saw and asked her where to find Ser Thrask. When she pointed out an older templar standing across the courtyard, Hawke merely nodded her thanks and went to greet him. She and Fenris walked unconsciously close to one another, as if each needed the silent, reassuring presence of the other in this place.
“Excuse me, Ser Thrask?”
The templar turned from speaking with a recruit to regard Hawke, and she quickly sized him up. He was of average height and handsome in his way, with deep red hair and calm, dark blue eyes. He wore a full beard and mustache a shade darker than his hair that added years to his appearance. Surprisingly, he had a look of kindness to him that Hawke would not have expected in a templar. She understood now why Arianni had trusted him to care for her son.
“Yes? What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to ask you about a boy named Feynriel.”
“Oh? I wasn't aware that my search for him was quite so well known,” Thrask replied, expression curious as he looked between the woman and her elven companion. Sudden realization dawned, and he smiled. “Your friend here perhaps knows him from the alienage?”
“Not every elf lives in one of your cages, templar,” Fenris said tightly. He felt a touch then and looked down to see Hawke's fingers resting atop his hand where the half-glove covered the skin. He couldn't have said why, but the light touch eased some of the tension and anger that simmered just beneath the surface of his calm veneer. He let it remain.
“Forgive me then, but how do you know of Feynriel?” Thrask inquired, the politeness of his tone undiminished by Fenris's rancor.
“I know his mother,” Hawke smiled easily. “She asked me to find out whether or not you have heard anything.”
The templar studied them both for a long moment, then finally shook his head. “No. I have not,” he admitted. “Perhaps you mean well, but I must inform you that this is a templar matter. You will do better to leave the finding of the boy to us.”
“You may believe that I have only the boy's best interests at heart, Ser Thrask. Is there nothing at all that you can tell me?”
Thrask narrowed his eyes, obviously trying to decide how much to say, if anything. At last he nodded. “I admit that the more people looking for Feynriel, the better. There's a man I know who lives down near the docks. He's an ex-templar, and has been rumored to help mages on the run. He would never talk to me or another templar, but perhaps he would talk to you. Go to the docks at night, and look for Samson.”
“Thank you,” Hawke said with quiet sincerity.
“Maker guide your steps,” Ser Thrask bowed formally. He watched as the two turned and walked swiftly from the Gallows courtyard, eyes thoughtful.
~*~
Once they were back in Lowtown, Hawke slanted Fenris a triumphant look. “See? I told you he would speak with us.”
Fenris gave her one of his blander looks, but Hawke only grinned. Being away from the Gallows had done so much to buoy her spirits that not even Fenris's unrelenting dourness could drag them back down again.
“Let's go wake up Varric. I want to see what he knows about this Samson.”
As it turned out, Varric had little to offer them that they didn't already know about the ex-templar. He did however impart the useful bit of information that Samson had been dismissed from the order for two reasons. The first was that he was sympathetic to the mages, a very unpopular trait among Kirkwall's templars. The second was a lyrium addiction that made him a tempting target for bribery and blackmail by desperate mages bent on escape.
So when Hawke ventured out to the docks that night with Fenris, Varric and Anders, she carried tucked into her short, padded coat of armor a small vial of luminous blue liquid. If Samson refused to cooperate, well, a little trade for information was preferable to resorting to force. But in the end, he proved to need little persuasion, physical or otherwise.
Whatever he once might have been, to Hawke he just looked old and tired. Nothing of the physical or mental strength she associated with templars seemed to remain inside his thin, nervous frame. He peered apprehensively at them through bleary brown eyes that looked sunken, dark pouches beneath. Hawke felt an unwelcome stir of pity.
“I heard someone might be lookin' for me,” he rasped when they approached. “I guess I heard right.”
“Rumor has it that you help mages trying to get free of Kirkwall,” Hawke said without preamble. “I'm looking for a boy named Feynriel.”
“You're too late. The boy did come to me, but without a coin to his name. I don't work on charity.”
“Where did he go?” she asked sharply, any sympathy she might have felt quickly fading.
“I sent him to a friend of mine, Captain Ranier - same man I sent another apostate to about a week ago. From what I hear though, he might've decided they were too valuable to let slip away.”
“You sent them to a smuggler!” Anders accused as sudden realization hit him.
“How was I to know?” Samson hunched his shoulders defensively. “He never took anyone before. Not that I ever heard.”
“Lovely,” Hawke muttered. “Why can nothing ever be simple? I don't suppose you know where I can find this Captain Ranier?”
Samson looked at the woman and her companions and quickly decided that this was one time when he wouldn't try to bargain. “Private warehouse on the other side of the docks. Owned by a man named Arthuris.”
“Let's go,” Hawke ordered. She didn't spare Samson another glance.
“You're welcome,” Samson muttered, shooting a poisonous look at the woman's departing back. When he looked away, his eyes collided with a pair of hostile, leaf-green ones that seemed to burn right down to the core of him. And then the elf was gone too, leaving the ex-templar suddenly very grateful that Captain Ranier was the one holding the bag.
“What do you intend to do?” Anders was asking Hawke when Fenris caught up to them.
“Speak with Captain Ranier, of course. I'll appeal to his sense of goodness.”
“Honey, if it's the same Captain Ranier I know, he doesn't have a sense of goodness,” Varric informed her.
“Then I'll appeal to his sense of self-preservation,” Hawke slanted a tight smile to the dwarf.
“That's my girl.”
The closer they got the warehouse Samson had named, the more cautious they became. There was no reason for the captain to be expecting them, but they had learned the hard way that not much worked out as expected after dark in Kirkwall. Four sets of eyes looked cautiously into the shadows, and they all kept their weapons close to hand.
The night remained quiet with only the splash of water against the quays and the creaking of planks and rigging to break the silence. But that was before the warehouse came into view at the end of the street. They had just stepped toward it when the screaming began.
After so many nights spent in and around Kirkwall hunting slavers or chasing bounties, all of them worked almost on instinct. They knew each other's strengths and weaknesses and automatically chose strategies that allowed each member of their little team to do what he or she did best. By the time they reached the warehouse, Fenris was out in front with Varric not far behind. The elf hadn't bothered to draw his sword yet - it would only slow him down. But Varric had pulled Bianca around and already had her cocked and ready. Anders and Hawke ran side by side behind the other two, staffs in hand. Each of them had a spell at the ready, but they wouldn't cast in the open streets unless they were forced.
When Fenris tested the door and found it locked, he stepped aside without a word to let Varric come forward. The dwarf shouldered Bianca so that he could grab his tools. The screaming continued behind the door, great wrenching bursts of sound that didn't seem humanly possible. And then, just as the dwarf began to work at the lock, everything went eerily silent.
He paused, shooting a questioning look to Hawke. She gripped her staff and looked at the door as if she could see through it, features grim. But they would never know until they went inside, so she simply nodded at Varric. With one of his I-hope-you-know-what-you're-doing looks, he returned to his task.
After that, everything happened in a rush. One moment the four of them were poised by the door, a tense tableau, and then Anders changed. His eyes glowed silver-blue and a matching radiance appeared like cracks in his skin.
“Get back!” he shouted, only it wasn't Anders. It was the hollow, emotionless voice of Justice.
And no sooner did he speak than a sudden wave of force rocked the building. First it drew inward, and it was as though everything slowed, dulling sound. And then it rushed back out with enough force to shake the stone it stood on. Every window burst outward, thousands of shards of glass spraying from the warehouse, falling like tinkling rain onto the stone of the causeway and the buildings nearby. The door that Varric crouched in front of flew outward from its hinges, sending the dwarf tumbling back into the street. He hit one of the stone supports of the quay and lay there, stunned. And even as it all happened, Fenris was moving. His tattoos were ablaze with magical energy as he threw himself at Hawke, knocking her back and covering her with his body while glass and splitered wood cascaded down around them.
Anders alone stood against the blast, motionless in the silver glowing sphere of protection that Justice had created for them. And as though he knew nothing of urgency, or caution, he started calmly and purposefully into the burning warehouse.
Fenris looked up just in time to see the glowing form of Anders disappear inside, but whatever the abomination might be up to was only a secondary concern. He levered himself up, looking down at Hawke. She stared back at him with a strange expression on her face, one that he couldn't begin to decipher - not that that was anything new when it came to her. But this one was different. It made him uncomfortably aware of how she felt beneath him. He rolled abruptly away from her and into a crouch.
“Are you injured?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Just got the breath knocked out of me a little. I'm fine. What about the others?”
“Your abomination friend went into the building. The dwarf...”
But he didn't need to say how Varric was. He had begun quietly cursing as soon as his wits returned. Now he sat against the stone support that had kept him from plopping into the water of the docks, running his hands back and forth over Bianca. Blood trickled from a cut above his right eye, but he didn't seem to notice.
Hawke pushed to her feet, using her staff for support. She didn't waste any time waiting for the shock of the explosion to wear off. Just as Anders had done, she moved straight for the entrance to the warehouse. Only she had Fenris to contend with.
“Hawke, don't be a fool. The building is on fire. It's unstable. It could collapse any moment, and it won't wait for you to get clear when it does.”
She shook her head. “The city guard can't ignore this. They will already be on their way, along with every person who has anything in this area that they don't want to lose to a fire. If there is anything inside that points to Feynriel, I have to get it now.”
“It's not worth it.”
“I'm going in, Fenris.”
He raked platinum hair back from his forehead in the first openly agitated gesture she had ever seen from him. Green eyes full of barely suppressed anger met hers, and then he nodded once, sharply, and came to join her.
“You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met,” he glared at her as he went past, taking the lead. He couldn't even have said why he did it. Of all the people in their little group, she was probably the best equipped to take care of herself and all the rest of them. And yet he felt this need, compulsion really, to protect her. It was maddening.
Together, the two of them stepped into a nightmare.
The fire had not yet begun to burn in earnest. It was a product of the explosion, but the force of the blast had done the damage inside, not the fire. Everything had been pushed back against the four walls, crates tumbled erratically like a child's building blocks, some intact, but most spilling their costly cargo of spices across the floor. Interspersed with them in a grisly collage were body parts, as if the limbs of every man and woman that had been in the warehouse had been systematically torn from them. Blood painted everything. Hawke's eyes met the dead, glazed stare of a pair of green eyes - a woman's severed head lay looking sightlessly toward the door, hair a pillow of gold and wet crimson beneath it. Hawke's stomach threatened to rebel and she swallowed convulsively, spinning away from the sight and taking deep, shuddering breaths.
Fenris never said a word, not to gloat or to reproach. He gave her time to compose herself, walking a short distance into the room to the sight she had missed in her shock over the carnage. In the exact center of the chaos lay two figures, and Anders crouched next to them. No longer surrounded by the protective glow, he searched the bodies.
One was the only human body in the room that had not been dismembered. A great pool of blood spread from beneath the dead man. The other figure was a mockery of humanity. It might have once been a woman, but the demon that had possessed her had disfigured her beyond any possibility of identification. It was nothing but an abomination now, a dead one. It had been stabbed any number of times, but the killing blow had come from the dagger that was still buried in its neck.
Anders finished searching the tattered red robe it wore and got to his feet just as Hawke joined them. Fenris shot her a concerned look that she returned with more calm than she felt. Pale but resolute, she spoke quietly to Anders.
“How did you know?”
“Justice knew,” he said just as quietly, toying with some papers he had taken from the bodies. “He - I - felt the presence of the abomination inside. When it died, all of its power released at once. You see with what result.”
“Is it... was it Feynriel?” Hawke forced herself to ask.
“No. It was a woman. It was not Feynriel, Hawke,” he told her firmly.
“What about him?” Fenris asked, nudging the man's dead body with his foot.
“I think he must have been locked in combat with it, bodily. Just as the blast spared the abomination's corpse, it spared his. He was alive when I got here,” the mage continued, amber eyes shadowed. “But there was no saving him. The demon tore out his abdomen, down to the sp-..” He stopped abruptly as Fenris jerked his head toward Hawke, who stood staring down at the dead figures, seemingly unaware of anything else.
“Anyway, he's dead now,” Anders finished lamely. “That was Captain Ranier.”
“Hawke,” Varric called quietly from the doorway. He had finished doing what he could for Bianca and belatedly joined the rest of them. When she didn't acknowledge him, he made his voice firm, a command. “Hawke!”
Her head came around slowly. “What?”
“We need to go, Honey. The city guard will be here any second. Men are already dousing the adjacent buildings with water to stop the fire from spreading. They'll start on this one next. We need to go,” he repeated.
“Right,” she nodded, seeming to finally shake off the horror surrounding them. “Let's go then. We can talk about what Anders found when we're safely away.”
Looking neither left nor right, she squared her shoulders and headed for the door. Her companions closed around her protectively and stayed that way all through the silent walk to Hightown.
A/N: Anyone who has played the game will know that I'm not strictly following the timeline. I just wanted to note that it's deliberate on my part. I love the game and most of the stories, but the "10-year (that is really 7-years) timeline" that the game covers kinda sucks. So I'm doing it my way. This chapter is based off of the quest "Wayward Son" in Act 1 of the game. It's kind of weird to write it, because I don't want to say what the game says, and yet I want events to play out roughly the same. So sorry if it doesn't work for some of you. Also, I feel the need to point out that I borrowed a line exactly from the game. When Fenris says, "Not every elf lives in one of your cages, templar," well, that's an exact quote. Why? Because it's perfect. :) Finally, I'm sleepy! I proof-read, but only once. I wanted to get this up tonight. I apologize in advance for any mistakes. I'm sure I'll correct them in the near future.
Sorry also for the lack of Sebastian in this chapter. There will be plenty more of him though, I promise.
Author: basbaker
Rating: M for some blood and gore
Word Count: 4926
Characters: F!Hawke, Fenris, Varric, Anders
Note: X-Posted to Muhrduhr
Despite the fact that it was late, Hawke and Fenris decided not to wait until morning before going to speak with Arianni. They had no worries about not being able to find her. Hawke was well known in the alienage for the part she had played in rescuing the elven girls from the slavers weeks before. Added to that, she had built a reputation for herself in Lowtown as someone who protected the innocent and the weak. While an elf might not normally hand out information on one of their own, not many would refuse to give Hawke an honest answer to her questions, especially when coins changed hands.
Within half an hour of leaving The Hanged Man, Fenris and Hawke stood at the door of one of the alienage's squalid residences. Fenris knocked, and after a moment the door opened a crack. Tilted green eyes peered at them suspiciously through it.
“What do you want?”
“Are you Arianni? My name is Hawke. I got your letter.” Hawke held up the paper where the elf could see it.
“Lady Hawke!” The door opened fully and Arianni stood back to let them enter. “Please come in. I'm sorry I didn't recognize you.”
They stepped into a home that was poorer even than Gamlen Amell's residence, and that was saying something. Though it was as clean as it could be, there was no disguising its state of disrepair, or the near absence of any comfort beyond a rough-hewn table and two chairs. A threadbare curtain that might have once been red partitioned off one small section of the room, and pallets were visible beneath its hem. Hawke looked the dwelling over in a glance, her features remaining free of the sudden sympathy she felt for the elf woman.
“You were probably expecting someone taller, or perhaps fire-breathing,” she said with a small, self-deprecating smile.
“The reality is frightening enough,” Fenris murmured in an undertone.
Hawke withered him with a look, then smiled at Arianni. “I was only joking, forgive me.” Arianni turned away to light one of the tallow candles, and when she turned back, Hawke stared in surprise. “But you're Dalish.”
Arianni smiled then, and the ritual tattoos that marked her shifted with the expression. There were many differences between city elves and Dalish elves, but most of them were not visible. The vallaslin, or blood writing, of the Dalish was the major exception. When a Dalish tribe member reached adulthood, the blood writing was done as a mark of their maturity. It was rare to find a Dalish elf in any city. Until Arianni, the only one that Hawke had seen was Merrill, and she had brought her to Kirkwall herself under very special circumstances.
“Yes, I am Dalish. Or I was. I've put that life behind me.”
“For this?” Fenris asked, his gravelly voice flat as he looked around the hovel.
“For Feynriel.”
“Your son,” Hawke nodded. “You said that he has gone missing, but I got the impression that there's more to it. If you can tell me what you know, I will try my best to help you.”
“I suppose I should start at the beginning,” Arianni said quietly, clasping her hands together and unconsciously wringing them.
“Feynriel's father is human. When I learned that I was pregnant with him, I left my clan to convince his father to take us with him. He's an Antivan merchant, you see, and often on the road. But Vincento had no wish to be burdened with a wife and child. I knew that my clan wouldn't accept Feynriel, so I came to live here, in the alienage.
“We did well enough, and at least it kept us together. But then, Feynriel started showing... signs. He has magic,” she said quietly.
Fenris snorted and moved away from the two women, back stiff. Hawke cast an irritated glance his way, then smiled reassuringly to the other woman. “It's alright. Despite how it seems, my friend here has not been above helping mages in the past. And neither have I. Go on.”
Flashing her a grateful look, Arianni continued. “I couldn't stand to lose him to the Circle, so I hid what he could do. Everything was fine until the last year or so. That was when he began having dreams. Such awful nightmares of demons whispering to him. He wakes from them screaming, terrified that they are going to claim him.” She shook her head, eyes filling.
Hawke reached out to clasp her hands, stilling their restless motions. Drawing strength from the simple contact, Arianni took a steadying breath.
“Instead of going away, the nightmares got worse. And he's becoming harder and harder to wake. I started to fear for his life, so I contacted a templar named Ser Thrask who was rumored to be kind to the mages, to ask him about putting Feynriel in the Circle, for his own good.”
“And what did your son think of this arrangement?”
“When Feynriel found out, he said that they would only make him Tranquil, and that he would rather die. And then he ran off. It's been two days, and I've had no word. I'm so afraid for him.”
“I will help in any way I can,” Hawke promised firmly. “Just tell me where to start.”
“All I want is for Feynriel to be safe, even if it means the Circle. As for where to start... his father Vincento has returned to town. He has a cart in the Lowtown Bazaar. I don't know if Feynriel would go to him, but it's possible. And Ser Thrask is looking for Feynriel, too. Perhaps he would share his information.”
“Don't worry, Arianni. I'm going to do everything in my power to find him.”
The Dalish woman smiled then, and the relief in it eased some of the lines of fear and worry from her features. “Thank you so much. I knew I could trust you.”
At that, Fenris turned back toward the room, looking between the two women. Your trust is given very quickly, woman, he thought. But after the acid look he had already received from Hawke, he didn't bother to give his opinion. It was only when they had said their goodbyes to a reassured Arianni that he spoke his mind.
“Another potential abomination. Don't we have enough trouble with that already?”
“This is different, Fenris, and you know it. Will you let your hatred of magic stop you from helping a terrified young man find some peace?”
“I said nothing about not helping,” Fenris told her sharply. “My only concern is how far you're willing to go to make him safe.”
“As far as I have to,” Hawke shrugged off the question.
Fenris stopped abruptly, grabbing her arm in a painful grip, pulling her around to face him. He scowled down at her from his superior height, everything about him suddenly tense and menacing. His eyes were seething green pools, and when he spoke to her, he bit off each quiet word.
“Will you be able to give this boy to the Circle, knowing that they will make him Tranquil? Will you be able to kill him if he's become an abomination? How far are you willing to go to make him safe, Hawke?”
Hawke went rigid as an answering anger shook through her. She took a deliberate step forward, her eyes narrowed dangerously on his. “As Far As I Have To. Now take your hand off of me. Unless you want a demonstration.”
Fenris's lips twisted on a smile completely devoid of humor. “Do you think that these markings are just for decoration? A bodyguard that cannot be protected from magic in Tevinter is useless to a magister. Do your worst, Hawke.”
Hawke felt power licking along her skin, building at just the thought of being summoned. Fenris's expression darkened and his lyrium markings began to shimmer blue-white. Their eyes stayed locked for a moment that seemed endless, but finally it was Hawke who backed down.
Her gaze dropped of its own volition to the silvery tracings of lyrium glowing at the elf's throat, and she felt her anger ebb as quickly as it had risen. The last thing she wanted to do was further fuel Fenris's distrust and hatred of magic, or of her. She couldn't believe she had let him drive her as far as he had. She felt sick and more than a little ashamed.
“No. I know they aren't decorations,” she answered quietly. “I'm sorry, Fenris. Magic has done enough to you - I won't add to that.”
“Keep your pity,” he growled, dropping her arm now as if it burned him. The glow had faded, only afterimages left in her vision. When he spoke again, it was without emotion. “Unless you intend to start searching for the boy now, I suggest we go back to Hightown. We can start at first light.”
When he saw her surprised look, his black brows lifted. “I told you I would help.”
“I thought you'd decided that I can't be trusted to handle Feynriel.”
“You thought wrong.”
~*~
When Hawke had first suggested speaking with Ser Thrask, Fenris had unequivocally dismissed the idea. It was too dangerous for her, he said, and not all the money and position in Kirkwall would save her if the templars decided she was a threat. With their confrontation the night before still fresh in her mind, Hawke had chosen to be diplomatic, arguing that it would save the two of them a lot of time if they knew up front whether or not Feynriel had already been found. She had even promised to leave her staff behind this once. Finally, Fenris had grudgingly agreed. And now they strode purposely through the courtyard, equally uncomfortable, but for different reasons.
The Gallows had been both a prison and a holding area for slaves during the reign of the Tevinter Imperium over Kirkwall. Executions had occurred hourly, usually for no better reason than to illustrate to those who were kept here how meaningless their lives were to their masters. Once the Imperium was ousted, the Gallows had been cleaned out. It had stayed empty for nearly two centuries, before the templars claimed it.
Now some said that the gallows was more a prison than ever, and it housed the most dangerous inmates of all - mages. Hawke could never come into this part of the city without a feeling of apprehension, whether she would admit it or not. The courtyard was always full of templar officers and recruits, usually acting as a not-so-subtle guard over the mages that occasionally left the tower to get some fresh air and exercise.
Not that Hawke would have chosen to walk around the Gallows herself. The entire structure and grounds still managed to convey a feeling of brooding oppression. Wrought iron bars filled many archways, giving even the stone alcoves around the great courtyard a grim look. Great bronze statues of slaves, abased and broken, adorned pedestals and hung affixed to the bleached stone walls. Worst of all were the friezes that depicted slaves in postures of fear and dejection, lorded over by the slavers that drove them. To Hawke, it was the most depressing place in Kirkwall.
In that, she and Fenris were in complete accord. He had no love for the mages and less sympathy. To him, locking them all away seemed the best solution for everyone. But even so, he admitted to himself that the Gallows was a miserable place for anyone to have to live. Every statue, every carving, was designed to impress upon a slave his utter hopelessness and lack of worth. The Gallows had been built to break slaves, and each time Fenris walked its stone streets, he remembered his life at the hands of Danarius and Hadriana. He remembered the time when he had felt worthless and without hope. It fueled his hatred and twisted his insides with anger and a pain that he refused to admit.
Intending to get their business finished as quickly as possible, Hawke greeted the first likely-looking young templar she saw and asked her where to find Ser Thrask. When she pointed out an older templar standing across the courtyard, Hawke merely nodded her thanks and went to greet him. She and Fenris walked unconsciously close to one another, as if each needed the silent, reassuring presence of the other in this place.
“Excuse me, Ser Thrask?”
The templar turned from speaking with a recruit to regard Hawke, and she quickly sized him up. He was of average height and handsome in his way, with deep red hair and calm, dark blue eyes. He wore a full beard and mustache a shade darker than his hair that added years to his appearance. Surprisingly, he had a look of kindness to him that Hawke would not have expected in a templar. She understood now why Arianni had trusted him to care for her son.
“Yes? What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to ask you about a boy named Feynriel.”
“Oh? I wasn't aware that my search for him was quite so well known,” Thrask replied, expression curious as he looked between the woman and her elven companion. Sudden realization dawned, and he smiled. “Your friend here perhaps knows him from the alienage?”
“Not every elf lives in one of your cages, templar,” Fenris said tightly. He felt a touch then and looked down to see Hawke's fingers resting atop his hand where the half-glove covered the skin. He couldn't have said why, but the light touch eased some of the tension and anger that simmered just beneath the surface of his calm veneer. He let it remain.
“Forgive me then, but how do you know of Feynriel?” Thrask inquired, the politeness of his tone undiminished by Fenris's rancor.
“I know his mother,” Hawke smiled easily. “She asked me to find out whether or not you have heard anything.”
The templar studied them both for a long moment, then finally shook his head. “No. I have not,” he admitted. “Perhaps you mean well, but I must inform you that this is a templar matter. You will do better to leave the finding of the boy to us.”
“You may believe that I have only the boy's best interests at heart, Ser Thrask. Is there nothing at all that you can tell me?”
Thrask narrowed his eyes, obviously trying to decide how much to say, if anything. At last he nodded. “I admit that the more people looking for Feynriel, the better. There's a man I know who lives down near the docks. He's an ex-templar, and has been rumored to help mages on the run. He would never talk to me or another templar, but perhaps he would talk to you. Go to the docks at night, and look for Samson.”
“Thank you,” Hawke said with quiet sincerity.
“Maker guide your steps,” Ser Thrask bowed formally. He watched as the two turned and walked swiftly from the Gallows courtyard, eyes thoughtful.
~*~
Once they were back in Lowtown, Hawke slanted Fenris a triumphant look. “See? I told you he would speak with us.”
Fenris gave her one of his blander looks, but Hawke only grinned. Being away from the Gallows had done so much to buoy her spirits that not even Fenris's unrelenting dourness could drag them back down again.
“Let's go wake up Varric. I want to see what he knows about this Samson.”
As it turned out, Varric had little to offer them that they didn't already know about the ex-templar. He did however impart the useful bit of information that Samson had been dismissed from the order for two reasons. The first was that he was sympathetic to the mages, a very unpopular trait among Kirkwall's templars. The second was a lyrium addiction that made him a tempting target for bribery and blackmail by desperate mages bent on escape.
So when Hawke ventured out to the docks that night with Fenris, Varric and Anders, she carried tucked into her short, padded coat of armor a small vial of luminous blue liquid. If Samson refused to cooperate, well, a little trade for information was preferable to resorting to force. But in the end, he proved to need little persuasion, physical or otherwise.
Whatever he once might have been, to Hawke he just looked old and tired. Nothing of the physical or mental strength she associated with templars seemed to remain inside his thin, nervous frame. He peered apprehensively at them through bleary brown eyes that looked sunken, dark pouches beneath. Hawke felt an unwelcome stir of pity.
“I heard someone might be lookin' for me,” he rasped when they approached. “I guess I heard right.”
“Rumor has it that you help mages trying to get free of Kirkwall,” Hawke said without preamble. “I'm looking for a boy named Feynriel.”
“You're too late. The boy did come to me, but without a coin to his name. I don't work on charity.”
“Where did he go?” she asked sharply, any sympathy she might have felt quickly fading.
“I sent him to a friend of mine, Captain Ranier - same man I sent another apostate to about a week ago. From what I hear though, he might've decided they were too valuable to let slip away.”
“You sent them to a smuggler!” Anders accused as sudden realization hit him.
“How was I to know?” Samson hunched his shoulders defensively. “He never took anyone before. Not that I ever heard.”
“Lovely,” Hawke muttered. “Why can nothing ever be simple? I don't suppose you know where I can find this Captain Ranier?”
Samson looked at the woman and her companions and quickly decided that this was one time when he wouldn't try to bargain. “Private warehouse on the other side of the docks. Owned by a man named Arthuris.”
“Let's go,” Hawke ordered. She didn't spare Samson another glance.
“You're welcome,” Samson muttered, shooting a poisonous look at the woman's departing back. When he looked away, his eyes collided with a pair of hostile, leaf-green ones that seemed to burn right down to the core of him. And then the elf was gone too, leaving the ex-templar suddenly very grateful that Captain Ranier was the one holding the bag.
“What do you intend to do?” Anders was asking Hawke when Fenris caught up to them.
“Speak with Captain Ranier, of course. I'll appeal to his sense of goodness.”
“Honey, if it's the same Captain Ranier I know, he doesn't have a sense of goodness,” Varric informed her.
“Then I'll appeal to his sense of self-preservation,” Hawke slanted a tight smile to the dwarf.
“That's my girl.”
The closer they got the warehouse Samson had named, the more cautious they became. There was no reason for the captain to be expecting them, but they had learned the hard way that not much worked out as expected after dark in Kirkwall. Four sets of eyes looked cautiously into the shadows, and they all kept their weapons close to hand.
The night remained quiet with only the splash of water against the quays and the creaking of planks and rigging to break the silence. But that was before the warehouse came into view at the end of the street. They had just stepped toward it when the screaming began.
After so many nights spent in and around Kirkwall hunting slavers or chasing bounties, all of them worked almost on instinct. They knew each other's strengths and weaknesses and automatically chose strategies that allowed each member of their little team to do what he or she did best. By the time they reached the warehouse, Fenris was out in front with Varric not far behind. The elf hadn't bothered to draw his sword yet - it would only slow him down. But Varric had pulled Bianca around and already had her cocked and ready. Anders and Hawke ran side by side behind the other two, staffs in hand. Each of them had a spell at the ready, but they wouldn't cast in the open streets unless they were forced.
When Fenris tested the door and found it locked, he stepped aside without a word to let Varric come forward. The dwarf shouldered Bianca so that he could grab his tools. The screaming continued behind the door, great wrenching bursts of sound that didn't seem humanly possible. And then, just as the dwarf began to work at the lock, everything went eerily silent.
He paused, shooting a questioning look to Hawke. She gripped her staff and looked at the door as if she could see through it, features grim. But they would never know until they went inside, so she simply nodded at Varric. With one of his I-hope-you-know-what-you're-doing looks, he returned to his task.
After that, everything happened in a rush. One moment the four of them were poised by the door, a tense tableau, and then Anders changed. His eyes glowed silver-blue and a matching radiance appeared like cracks in his skin.
“Get back!” he shouted, only it wasn't Anders. It was the hollow, emotionless voice of Justice.
And no sooner did he speak than a sudden wave of force rocked the building. First it drew inward, and it was as though everything slowed, dulling sound. And then it rushed back out with enough force to shake the stone it stood on. Every window burst outward, thousands of shards of glass spraying from the warehouse, falling like tinkling rain onto the stone of the causeway and the buildings nearby. The door that Varric crouched in front of flew outward from its hinges, sending the dwarf tumbling back into the street. He hit one of the stone supports of the quay and lay there, stunned. And even as it all happened, Fenris was moving. His tattoos were ablaze with magical energy as he threw himself at Hawke, knocking her back and covering her with his body while glass and splitered wood cascaded down around them.
Anders alone stood against the blast, motionless in the silver glowing sphere of protection that Justice had created for them. And as though he knew nothing of urgency, or caution, he started calmly and purposefully into the burning warehouse.
Fenris looked up just in time to see the glowing form of Anders disappear inside, but whatever the abomination might be up to was only a secondary concern. He levered himself up, looking down at Hawke. She stared back at him with a strange expression on her face, one that he couldn't begin to decipher - not that that was anything new when it came to her. But this one was different. It made him uncomfortably aware of how she felt beneath him. He rolled abruptly away from her and into a crouch.
“Are you injured?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Just got the breath knocked out of me a little. I'm fine. What about the others?”
“Your abomination friend went into the building. The dwarf...”
But he didn't need to say how Varric was. He had begun quietly cursing as soon as his wits returned. Now he sat against the stone support that had kept him from plopping into the water of the docks, running his hands back and forth over Bianca. Blood trickled from a cut above his right eye, but he didn't seem to notice.
Hawke pushed to her feet, using her staff for support. She didn't waste any time waiting for the shock of the explosion to wear off. Just as Anders had done, she moved straight for the entrance to the warehouse. Only she had Fenris to contend with.
“Hawke, don't be a fool. The building is on fire. It's unstable. It could collapse any moment, and it won't wait for you to get clear when it does.”
She shook her head. “The city guard can't ignore this. They will already be on their way, along with every person who has anything in this area that they don't want to lose to a fire. If there is anything inside that points to Feynriel, I have to get it now.”
“It's not worth it.”
“I'm going in, Fenris.”
He raked platinum hair back from his forehead in the first openly agitated gesture she had ever seen from him. Green eyes full of barely suppressed anger met hers, and then he nodded once, sharply, and came to join her.
“You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met,” he glared at her as he went past, taking the lead. He couldn't even have said why he did it. Of all the people in their little group, she was probably the best equipped to take care of herself and all the rest of them. And yet he felt this need, compulsion really, to protect her. It was maddening.
Together, the two of them stepped into a nightmare.
The fire had not yet begun to burn in earnest. It was a product of the explosion, but the force of the blast had done the damage inside, not the fire. Everything had been pushed back against the four walls, crates tumbled erratically like a child's building blocks, some intact, but most spilling their costly cargo of spices across the floor. Interspersed with them in a grisly collage were body parts, as if the limbs of every man and woman that had been in the warehouse had been systematically torn from them. Blood painted everything. Hawke's eyes met the dead, glazed stare of a pair of green eyes - a woman's severed head lay looking sightlessly toward the door, hair a pillow of gold and wet crimson beneath it. Hawke's stomach threatened to rebel and she swallowed convulsively, spinning away from the sight and taking deep, shuddering breaths.
Fenris never said a word, not to gloat or to reproach. He gave her time to compose herself, walking a short distance into the room to the sight she had missed in her shock over the carnage. In the exact center of the chaos lay two figures, and Anders crouched next to them. No longer surrounded by the protective glow, he searched the bodies.
One was the only human body in the room that had not been dismembered. A great pool of blood spread from beneath the dead man. The other figure was a mockery of humanity. It might have once been a woman, but the demon that had possessed her had disfigured her beyond any possibility of identification. It was nothing but an abomination now, a dead one. It had been stabbed any number of times, but the killing blow had come from the dagger that was still buried in its neck.
Anders finished searching the tattered red robe it wore and got to his feet just as Hawke joined them. Fenris shot her a concerned look that she returned with more calm than she felt. Pale but resolute, she spoke quietly to Anders.
“How did you know?”
“Justice knew,” he said just as quietly, toying with some papers he had taken from the bodies. “He - I - felt the presence of the abomination inside. When it died, all of its power released at once. You see with what result.”
“Is it... was it Feynriel?” Hawke forced herself to ask.
“No. It was a woman. It was not Feynriel, Hawke,” he told her firmly.
“What about him?” Fenris asked, nudging the man's dead body with his foot.
“I think he must have been locked in combat with it, bodily. Just as the blast spared the abomination's corpse, it spared his. He was alive when I got here,” the mage continued, amber eyes shadowed. “But there was no saving him. The demon tore out his abdomen, down to the sp-..” He stopped abruptly as Fenris jerked his head toward Hawke, who stood staring down at the dead figures, seemingly unaware of anything else.
“Anyway, he's dead now,” Anders finished lamely. “That was Captain Ranier.”
“Hawke,” Varric called quietly from the doorway. He had finished doing what he could for Bianca and belatedly joined the rest of them. When she didn't acknowledge him, he made his voice firm, a command. “Hawke!”
Her head came around slowly. “What?”
“We need to go, Honey. The city guard will be here any second. Men are already dousing the adjacent buildings with water to stop the fire from spreading. They'll start on this one next. We need to go,” he repeated.
“Right,” she nodded, seeming to finally shake off the horror surrounding them. “Let's go then. We can talk about what Anders found when we're safely away.”
Looking neither left nor right, she squared her shoulders and headed for the door. Her companions closed around her protectively and stayed that way all through the silent walk to Hightown.
A/N: Anyone who has played the game will know that I'm not strictly following the timeline. I just wanted to note that it's deliberate on my part. I love the game and most of the stories, but the "10-year (that is really 7-years) timeline" that the game covers kinda sucks. So I'm doing it my way. This chapter is based off of the quest "Wayward Son" in Act 1 of the game. It's kind of weird to write it, because I don't want to say what the game says, and yet I want events to play out roughly the same. So sorry if it doesn't work for some of you. Also, I feel the need to point out that I borrowed a line exactly from the game. When Fenris says, "Not every elf lives in one of your cages, templar," well, that's an exact quote. Why? Because it's perfect. :) Finally, I'm sleepy! I proof-read, but only once. I wanted to get this up tonight. I apologize in advance for any mistakes. I'm sure I'll correct them in the near future.
Sorry also for the lack of Sebastian in this chapter. There will be plenty more of him though, I promise.