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The Wild Dark

Chapter Five: Fingers Laced

"This is Fenris. This is Fenris ready to be in it. Knee-deep and muddied and inescapable."

Hawke watches as Fenris swings his sword to cut more flesh on their path to Meredith. It is swift and sure. Without hesitation. Without mercy. Blood splashes across his cheeks and he does not seem to notice. Hawke watches as his lyrium-lined form slinks through templars with an ease that scares her in its efficiency, in its ruthlessness. The lines of magic along his body thrum in recognition of the age old song. It sings to her in notes she can only discern through touch, her own palms burning with magic, searing hot and fatal across a man's chest, burning with an inkling of the ethereal. That instant, breathtaking, otherworldly moment of disconnect, that precipice at the edge of consciousness, that itch of un-reality burrowing in the back of your skull.

Hawke's magic weaves illusion through the minds of men and Fenris' sword cuts stark streaks of blinding pain, both cutting swaths through mind and body, jarring men into near-death moments of wakefulness. Epiphany. The be all and end all that comes with death's pronouncement. It is swift and shattering and cold beyond recognition. Each of them, mage, templar, slave, has blood that cannot be washed, live truths that cannot be spoken, dream in white and bathe in grey. They each of them live brief and dirty lives. They each of them strive for more. They each of them live as though it matters. As though it all matters. Each breath. Each word. Each touch.

Hawke feels it all. She feels every life she takes in this mad, useless struggle. She cries for each of them.

"Alright Varric, my lovely, foresight-challenged dwarf. Pay up."

Hawke glances back at Isabela's statement as the pirate stretches out a palm toward the dwarf. They all stop at the foot of the steps leading to the mage quarters, watching as Orsino showers fireballs upon charging templars to let several mages escape into the hold of the old slave prison, now housing hundreds of half terrified, half furious mages. Hawke raises a brow at the comment and Varric answers begrudgingly, flipping two gold coins to Isabela, "Damn Orsino. Figured the elf wouldn't last 'til you arrived."

Hawke wants to look offended but can't help the laugh that erupts from her as they run up the stone steps.

"Are you really going to fight your own brother?" Carver is just standing there, his sword sheathed, his place behind Meredith. The cold silver of his templar armor blends into the muted grey stone around them until Hawke cannot differentiate the two. Until she can see only a prison.

She clenches her fists tightly, her nails biting half moons into her own flesh. "You ask as though I have a choice," she nearly spits. It is easy to look at Carver and be furious. Too easy. What has magic done to this family, she thinks. And then she curses the thought as quickly as it came, shakes away the idea because no, it was never magic. Magic was never what changed people. The change had always been in there somewhere, working, sleeping, sometimes dying. But the change was always there. This family was its own doing. This family was her doing. She softens at the thought.

Carver chuckles humorlessly, and it is not the reaction she expects. "We both know no one has ever made you do anything you didn't want to."

Hawke swallows her words.

"Serah Hawke," and here Meredith's voice and face is inclined to Carver, "you will follow your orders and fulfill your duty as a templar. Or would you like to share your sister's fate?"

There is a flicker of something sharp and bright in Meredith's eye. But Hawke cannot identify it and she is too focused on Carver at this moment to care. She feels Fenris' solid strength and warmth behind her.

Meredith does not even give Carver the choice of an answer, instead she warns Orsino to prepare and turns down the steps, her templar order following. Merrill, Aveline, Varric and Isabela help Orsino pull the wounded into the keep. Hawke remains in the blood-stained courtyard watching Carver as he stares at her. Fenris' presence has not moved.

Hawke finally finds the words that must be said, whether he likes them or not, whether she believes them or not. "I don't want to be the last of this family." Her voice is coarse and forced, her grip never loosening on her staff.

Carver scoffs, and that sounds more familiar to Hawke. "You speak as though it is already assumed I couldn't defeat you."

Hawke forces the nonchalant shadow of a smirk to her lips. "You never could before."

Carver narrows his eyes in annoyance, crossing his arms over his chest. "Your arrogance will be your downfall, sister."

Hawke feels the slight thrum of magic lighting up the lyrium along Fenris' form behind her. But she has learned how to understand her brother, even if he has yet to understand her. She holds a palm before the elf in a motion of calm.

Carver watches and cannot help the slight anger that flares in him at the sight. "And what then? Your new slave here challenges me?"

Fenris speaks before she has an answer. "How can you still, in all this time, know your sister so little?"

Hawke only blinks at her brother, and she sees that he cannot know everything that has happened between her and Fenris. She sees that he may never know what she went through after Mother's death. She sees that he would never understand if she told him she sees Bethany beyond the Veil at night, when she is powerless against the pull of the Fade in her dreams. She sees that there are parts of her that he will never know. The thought made her heart clench harshly inside her chest. This was family. This was blood. And wasn't that what this war was all about? It was always about the blood. She's been trying so desperately to prove that blood is too important to spill senselessly. It is too important to throw away because they are each too stubborn for words that should be easy.

"I will never know my sister. If she will not let me." There is something weak in Carver's voice then that reminds her of Lothering. Burning homes and blood-curdling screams and feet sore and bloodied but still thumping their freedom into the dirt, still running toward something better, something safer. Carver's voice sounds like a break away. It sounds like how this new life feels. Tired and heavy and helpless. He cannot even look at her.

Fenris is silent behind Hawke, waiting for her reaction. His hand is still resting on the handle of his sword, his body is still tense and waiting and ready. He has learned, as Hawke has, to assume danger from anyone.

Hawke opens her mouth to speak and knows what she must say. Because she is done being too stubborn for words that should be easy. "I will need your help." It was so simple.

Fenris looks at Hawke and wants to hold her to him suddenly, hearing those words she had given him as reason so long ago, as reason for her loyalty to her companions. They had each asked it of her. She has never asked it for herself. But now, with Carver, it may be the beginning of something they should have started long ago.

Carver's head whips up and he locks eyes with his sister. Though her words imply helplessness, there is nothing but strength in her gaze. She is the same head-strong, unmoving, infuriatingly self-righteous sister he has always known. There is nothing lesser about her in her admission. And yet, she asks this of him. She needs him, maybe in ways she doesn't even know yet but she needs him. He is too afraid to admit that he needs her too.

Instead, he studies his steadfast sister, this sister with allies so motivated by their love for her that they take up arms and open themselves up to the slaughter. He glances back to the retreating templars, glances back at his comrades, the fearful, the zealots, the lost, all of them strangers. It is not difficult to see where they lead.

Carver turns from the sight of their backs and walks silently and purposefully into the stone prison behind Hawke and Fenris.

Hawke grabs Fenris' arm, releases a breath she didn't even realize she was holding, and when Fenris looks down at her, her smile is blinding and shaking and whole.

It is almost enough to make her fall to her knees before the templars, watching as Orsino brings his dagger to his hand. She watches and cannot move as his flesh twists and breaks and reforms and melds with the dead bodies around him. She watches as all traces of humanity bleed out from the rotting flesh and the demon's magic seeps in. She watches its eyes go dark and empty. It is almost enough to make her cry.

Hawke only moves at Merrill's sharp and tear-stained gasp of "No!" The elf's fingers come shakily to her mouth, as though to hold her breath. This is blood she cannot understand shedding.

Hawke pulls her staff before her and finds Fenris already plunging his sword deep into the gut of the rampaging abomination. The monster howls in pain and swings a lumbering arm toward the source of pain. But Fenris has already dashed away and flanked its other side. His eyes are dark and hateful, and Hawke catches the snarling Arcanium curses he spits into the air.

It is almost enough to make her give up. Almost.

Merrill is the first to fire a spell at the once-Orsino.

Hawke recognizes that glint she saw in Meredith's eye earlier. It carries the same song of the Fade as the lyrium along Fenris' lithe body, but it is not sweet, it is sour and corrupted and black. The song pierces Hawke's consciousness moments before the Knight Commander pulls the pure lyrium blade from its sheath. Templars are already backing away. Cullen is already praying to the Maker. Hawke is already grinning at the challenge. Her magic flares within her. She has missed it sorely. This is her. This fight is her. She whips a cone of flame toward the Knight Commander and laughs into the dark night.

They make it out of Kirkwall an hour after Meredith falls dead. Hawke stops as they make it to the bottom of the Gallow stairs and everyone stumbles to a halt in confusion, urges to continue on their lips, Isabela's "For the sake of Andraste's dirty knickers, would you come on!" nervous and hurried. Hawke turns to Aveline and pulls the woman into a fierce hug. Aveline splutters in surprise, one arm moving to hold Hawke while she asks "What the hell has gotten into you, Hawke?"

Hawke pulls back and looks at Aveline with eyes that remember what the warrior looked like when she lost Wesley. She pulls in a deep breath and puts her hands on the Guard Captain's shoulders. "Go to him."

Aveline opens her mouth in question before she shuts it in silence, her eyes searching Hawke's.

"Donnic is waiting for you. And I cannot ask you to leave him to flee with me."

Aveline smirks at her and quirks an eyebrow. "You wouldn't risk asking me that," she almost laughs.

Hawke is silent.

Aveline reaches a hand to Hawke's head and pulls her into another embrace, placing her lips on the mage's forehead and closing her eyes as she breathes. "I love you, my sister. Stay safe. Fight hard. Always remember."

"Always." Hawke's answering whisper is soft and lined with tears she will not shed. Her hands come up to grasp Aveline's as they pull away from each other. She strokes the other woman's hand quickly with her thumb and then moves down the stairs, turns without looking back because she knows she will not leave if she does.

Aveline raises her sword in the air and shouts into the clouds and smoke and dark of night, "Champion! Champion! Champion!"

Hawke raises a fist to the air and keeps running. She does not look back.

Hawke makes it to Gamlen's and finds him nursing a mug of ale, sitting on the floor before the fireplace. He has only a moment to stand and shout in surprise as the group erupts through his threshold. Carver shakes his head and urges their uncle to quiet while Hawke hands him several sovereigns and closes his fist around the money, all the while he's stammering questions at Carver while the former templar waves away his confusion and tries to impart their goodbyes.

Varric is at the door and urging Hawke and Carver to move it.

Hawke grabs Gamlen's chin and pulls his gaze to hers. Carver rolls his eyes but quiets.

"This will not buy you love, or family, or respect. But it is all I can give you before we leave."

"Leave? Leave where? What has happ-"

"I've killed Meredith and freed the Circle mages."

"Well, fuck me."

"And they will hunt us down. They will hunt you down. Because we are family."

Gamlen fires up a scathing comment at the sudden inclusion of himself in this mad frenzy but stops at the way she says "family". It is in the way she holds his closed hand over the gold. It is in the way she stands with Carver, and not apart from him. It is in the way her eyes tell him how much this hurts her, in ways he could never understand.

Gamlen sighs and motions toward the door. "Come on, tell me on the way. I got you into this blasted hellhole of a city. Might as well help get you out."

Hawke did not argue, and as they made their way through Lowtown, Fenris leaned toward her, motioning to Gamlen ahead of them and saying, "Somehow, you always manage to move the lowliest of us to action."

Hawke lifts her gaze to his and cannot help her smile. "What can I say? I have a soft spot for underdogs." She kisses him quickly, pressing her lips to his in momentary warmth and then leaving him to wonder at the loss when she pulls away and jogs ahead to catch Carver. He picks up his pace, a smile tugging at his lips.

It has been six days since they last walked the streets of Kirkwall. Merrill had made her way to the Dalish immediately to warn them of the coming war. She had found her way back to Hawke's group as they sat around their meager fire and meal somewhere in the woods north of Kirkwall. They were moving north before they would start making a sweep west, into Orlais. Hawke is the first to hand Merrill a bowl of weak soup and scoot over to welcome her onto the fallen tree trunk they used as a bench around the fire.

Varric burns out all his contacts after pulling in favors for gold and supplies when they fled the city. Isabela keeps arguing for the theft of a ship north, nothing huge, just large enough to be manned by the six of them. She begins calling Carver her first mate. He threatens her with violence. She only laughs. She seems to be the only one of them who still can.

Hawke does not know what to do. She does not know where to go. She looks to Fenris and finds he has as little answers as she. So they keep moving. And they stay together. It is just them. It is just them against a world that thinks they know them. Hawke doesn't intend to go quietly.

"When did you know?"

Hawke and Fenris are lying together on the leaf-covered floor of the wood just beyond Wildervale. Winter has begun to set in and Hawke puffs a breath into the air to watch it rise in a cloud after her question. It is night. It is Isabela's watch somewhere out of earshot. The others are asleep and Hawke and Fenris have taken to sharing blankets and bed rolls in the chill evenings.

Fenris grunts in half sleep, the timber of his voice rumbling through his throat. "Know what?" His question is followed by his arm tightening around Hawke's waist and pulling her closer to him. She nuzzles into his warmth and pulls a blanket further up their shoulders. His eyes are closed, still trying to lull into sleep while Hawke lays restlessly beside him, staring at the stars above.

"That you loved me?"

Fenris opens one eye to watch Hawke as she stars up into the night. She is not looking at his face, too preoccupied with the light above and he has to smile at the way she asks as though she already knows, as though she does not need to look at him to know the answer in his face.

"I have made no such declaration."

Hawke looks at him quickly, opens her mouth in mock offense and moves to swat at his arm, but his hold around her body tightens in response to hold her arms to her and he cannot help the chuckle that leaves his lips at her frustration. She huffs and narrows her eyes at him but relaxes in his hold.

"And you never will if I leave it up to you," she retorts playfully.

Fenris moves his lips to her neck and revels in the sharp intake of breath that escapes her lips when he presses his warm mouth to the cold skin of her neck. He feels the soft rumble of a moan as he moves his lips against her skin.

"When?" she asks breathlessly.

Fenris sighs against her neck and pulls back to look at her. There is something in her eyes that tells him she needs this. He raises himself up slightly and rests his cheek in his palm, his elbow braced against the ground as he looks down at her.

"Perhaps it was when you called Carver a whiny piece of Darkspawn shit."

Hawke laughed loudly and then slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from waking the others. "How do you even remember that?" she whispered sharply between laughing and gasping for air.

Fenris smiled down at her and she lost herself to the sight. "It was a memorable moment."

She quirked a brow at him. "That can't be it. Because if it is, I should probably re-evaluate this relationship." The fact that she can even say the word "relationship" and receive not a blink from Fenris still astounds her. But she's not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She simply smiles back at him.

"You know, you are correct. It was not that moment. Rather, it was when Anders asked you to join him at the Laughing Crow tavern for dinner and you obliviously invited the rest of us." He found himself chuckling softly at the memory before he noticed Hawke's averted gaze, her slight shift against him. He found her lips with his quickly, pulled her attention back to him. He shouldn't have brought up Anders. It was too soon. And he wouldn't let her go back to that dark place. He released her mouth with a playful nip to her lips and she fluttered her heavy eyelids open to watch him through burning amber eyes.

"Perhaps it was when you lashed into me that night in my mansion."

Hawke blinks and falls into the memory, recalling the heavy, loaded words they slung at each other, the way he had slammed her into the wall and she had flung him away with a mind blast, her guard coming up again quickly in hurt disbelief.

His mouth is close to her neck again and she finds herself leaning her body closer toward him.

"Everything you said was right. And I was too foolish and proud to understand the value of your words." His breath is hot against her skin.

She swallows heavily and turns her gaze back to the stars, something to focus on.

"Perhaps it was when you first allowed me the taste of your skin." His tongue flicks out and swipes along her neck slowly, languidly, and she closes her eyes to the sensation, her breathing suddenly heavier.

"Or when you asked me to stay. And I knew I could not go back to the way I was, even if I walked from your room." His hold on her loosens and he pulls a hand to glide gently across her stomach, and beneath her cotton shirt, ghosting across her skin in a way that makes her tremble fiercely.

"When you proved your strength to me in the Fade of Feynriel's mind."

Another slow swipe of his tongue along her skin. She reaches a hand to his chest and feels his heart beat beneath her touch.

"When you cried your pain and vulnerability into my arms that night in your library."

Hawke squeezes her eyes tightly to the memory, pushing the thought from her mind and she doesn't need to try hard because Fenris' fingers whisper across her ribcage and pull a soft gasp from her mouth

"When you stood victorious over the body of a Qunari lord."

The slight nip of his teeth along her skin and she turns fully into his arms, her fingers reaching for his jaw, wanting to watch that beautiful mouth as he speaks.

"When you reached for me at my funeral." His voice quakes slightly here and Hawke finds herself planting soft kisses along his jaw this time. He sighs into her hair.

"When you challenged a city-state."

Hawke's kiss against his jaw is interrupted by her slight laugh. The feeling is warm and welcomed against his skin.

"When you kiss me as though I matter."

Hawke catches his gaze just before she moves her lips to his and slides their warmth together. Her fingers are against his jaw, holding his mouth to hers. He shifts them so that he is braced atop her. His hand is gripping the bare skin of her hip and he can't help but push closer to her, slide his chest into hers and move his mouth against hers roughly, sliding his tongue languidly along her own . She opens to him and sighs into his mouth, her moan shaking them both as Fenris pulls from her slowly, breathless. His gaze is dark and hooded and she needs his hands on her in ways she's afraid to speak of.

"I have loved you a thousand times in a thousand different ways." The grated smoke of his voice rolls over her and she drops her gaze to his lips unconsciously, licking her own in response. His voice brings her back and his hand on her neck makes her chest ache. "I cannot know what is to come. But I want to meet this world with you."

Her breath is caught somewhere between her throat and his mouth, his lips tender this time, soft and momentary. When he pulls away she is no longer trembling.

"And you?" His voice is tentative in a way Hawke has never heard from him.

She blinks through her haze at Fenris, watching his green eyes shift to search her, his arms bracing his form above her. For a moment she can only think of his lips and his tongue and his hands. But she knows what he's asking. And she swallows thickly, eyeing him with a vulnerability he has never seen in her.

"When you said my name." Her voice is a plea and Fenris answers with his touch, his lips moving to her neck and she arches into him, his whisper ghosting across her flesh in a tremble of passion.

"Rahna."

Rahna remembers the boat ride across the dark waters on their way to the Gallows, just before the major battle erupted between mage and templar. Minutes and seconds passing by in shallow mockery of their lives. Her hands tremble in anxious anticipation, gripping her staff, running her fingers along the smooth wood up toward the sharp curved blade topping the staff. She nicks her finger, pulls the tip to her mouth to suck the blood away. She will not suffer blood to mix with her magic now. She finds this trembling is not of fear. It is a fire lighting its way along her skin. Fury and fortitude blossom beneath her skin and she begins to understand something she had not before. This coming battle cannot end without her standing above Meredith's corpse. She knows she will have only a moment of relief, of checking body parts and companions before the running starts. She wonders who will be running alongside her when that moment comes.

Hawke pulls in a deep breath, flutters her eyelids closed, reaches into the Fade and spreads her fingers through the magic weaving before her, itching her fingertips along the web of enchantment constantly filtering through the consciousness of all mortals. There is comfort here. There is reassurance that all the deaths will mean something. They will have to mean something. Hawke cannot fight any other way. She opens her eyes to the approaching prison towering over the dark waters. This can only end in one way. And Maker have mercy on the souls who stand in her path.

She knew she'd find Merrill next to her on the boat. There was never a question of where the elf stood. Hawke watches Merril as their boat wades through the thick waters. She is hunched over some trinket in her hands, some remembrance of her clan. She is whispering something dark and yet perseverant and defiant. Something clawing free of the blackness is breaking through her voice and Hawke hears Merrill's pleading whispers to the Dread Wolf carry across the wind to her ears. There is no mention of Hawke and their companions. There is not even mention of her own life. There is only the mention of innocents, only the pleas for mercy amongst the blind, only the hope of peace and breath and life in the coming moments, for those who cannot help their part in this war. Hawke wants to remind herself of the blood magic that Merrill wields so freely. She wants to remind herself that the elf has made deals with demons that cost more than lives. She wants to remind herself that good intentions do not cleanse oneself of blood. But she cannot blame the elf. And she cannot hate the elf. She can only watch in solemn understanding the soft prayers that leave Merrill's lips. She can only join her in her hope of some life leaving this unscathed. She knows it will not be hers.

In a way, she had expected to not find Aveline at her side, the Guard Captain being probably the only person Hawke could imagine respecting from the other side of the line drawn. Even in her surprise, Hawke watches Aveline at the rear of the boat. The Guard Captain is watching the water behind them, watching the path they leave behind. She raises her gaze to the passing dwellings along the waterside, watches the citizens board their windows and turn out their gas lamps. In a way, Hawke should have know she'd be taking this boat ride, should have known Aveline would always be there to protect those who could not protect themselves. Hawke doesn't know that Aveline had met Donnic briefly before they left for the Gallows. It was momentary and fleeting and surrounded by a burning Kirkwall. They had just cleared an alley of templars cornering three fleeing mages. The mages had run in their freedom, and Aveline had found herself moving to Donnic without reservation, without care for her Guardsmen watching. She had flung her arms around his shoulders and kissed him in a relief that tasted of sweat and blood, his own hands coming up to hold her face against his.

They had only seconds before the erupting flame of the collapsing building beside them rushed them out of the alley. Aveline grasped Donnic's arm, eyed him levelly and said firmly "I will not abandon Hawke." No apology, no excuse, no negotiation. Donnic had simply nodded and answered "Then I will find you when the battle is over."

Aveline nodded, raised her sword toward the Gallows beyond the docks and called to her Guardsmen to rally around the citizens. Her orders to gather any injured and round them at the barracks, to rush the citizens in Lowtown from the bombarded quarter to safety, to focus solely on the unarmed civilian were shouted through the streets. The Guardsmen rushed into action. Donnic rallied his platoon and there was only the briefest of moments where he and Aveline locked eyes. A moment to share all that needed to be said. And she knew then that he would find her. There was no doubt in her mind. They turned to run through separate alleys and when Aveline had found herself at Hawke's side, there was no trepidation in her sword-arc, no wavering to her stance. She had a husband to find when this horrible mess was quelled. And there were lives that needed saving. Aveline had never run from a fight in her life.

There would have been no malice meant for the absences Hawke expected of Varric and Isabela, something in their flighty natures made it difficult to imagine them on her side of the fight, instead gathering their gold and reputations on their way to someplace that prides itself on its lack of politics. She would never ask them to stay and fight with her.

Watching the story-telling dwarf now, Hawke thinks that Varric might just be in this for the story, for the unadulterated literary material that comes with "The Champion against a City", all copyrights pursuant to one Varric Tethras. She had not thought to find him on this boat otherwise. And in a moment of disbelief and doubt of character Hawke had sidled up next to him, her mouth thick with question, her tongue fuzzy with confusion.

"If I'd have placed a bet you'd be riding this boat with me, I'd have lost."

Varric only looks at Hawke, his hands gripping Bianca, shaking in a fear he didn't think he'd ever be capable of. And it had nothing to do with his own life. There was too much at stake here to think his life made any difference in the scale. No. This fear was not about him. This fear was about walls. Strategically erected and constantly fortified. Walls that crumbled with a single man's action. Varric had never liked open spaces. Walls reminded him of that never-seen but always held-dear home, of the Stone, of guidance, of some kind of order the world still tried to follow. Stories can't be written without plot. Lives cannot be molded without form. Entering the Gallows meant no more walls, no more clear-cut direction, no more boundaries. The next coming moments would be a free-for-all. The next coming years would be a bloodbath. In a way, Varric was angry Hawke could not understand this fear. Varric had a place in the previous order. Now, anything was possible. And most of the possibilities didn't end in merciful death.

Varric eyes Hawke as she lays her hands against the rail of the boat, leaning back in feigned nonchalance, knowing that nothing could be farther from the truth. He chuckles softly, because he thinks Hawke needs that right now. "You never were good at gambling."

There is something grateful in Hawke's smirk.

Isabela is leaning her elbows along the boat, reveling in the sad, brief experience of wind and sea and wave. She knows it won't last. She knows it is small and insufficient. But she takes pleasure in the few minutes she can watch the surf before she needs to bring her steel to throats too young to know of mysterious blue and helpless love. She breathes in the salt sweet aroma and twists her neck to catch the swirling, free brushes of ocean-swept wind.

She tells herself that she is simply paying Hawke back for that terrible Qunari business that left her groundside for years. Once this fight is through she'll be back to the sea where she belongs, captaining her own ship once again. Hawke had been dragged into being Champion. Isabela knew the mage had not asked for the honor, had not fought for the right. She had fought for reasons too many for Isabela to even enumerate but it was never for the title. She half expects Hawke had intended to die in the fight against the Arishok. And yet, still she stood. And still she met Isabela with a smile when she returned, wary and cautious but a smile nonetheless. Still Hawke had offered the olive branch of her own vulnerability and Isabela was not one to waste opportunity.

She sighs as she looks toward the Gallows looming closer across the water. She had lied. She knew. This was not paying a debt. Because Isabela figures the fight, the real one, the actual war she's sure started about half a day ago, won't be won here. It will go on. Isabela has learned to recognize the temporary and the infinite. Hawke will not be able to walk away from the Gallows as any kind of victor. And she'll need an Isabela when the running starts. Hawke called and she answered, just as she promised.

Shaking her head at her own judgment, her eyes rolled heavenward, Isabela relishes the soothing sound of water lapping at their boat. She knows it won't last.

Hawke finds Fenris leaning his back against the opposite side of the boat, watching her. His stare is not one of caution, it is not one of question, or wariness or even confusion. And Hawke figures confusion is the least she can expect from him with this turn of events. She could never imagine asking him for his sword in this fight. She could never imagine him granting it.

But she never asked him to stand with her. She never pled her case and listed the inhumanities forced on the mages. She never tried to turn the argument into a pity case, never tried to beg his help in the fight against tyrants. This was never how it was. Magic was never a pity, never a haunting, never a curse. It was a burden, yes, but a burden of greatness, demanding strength of character more than strength of mana. Magic was a test of the Maker. Magic was man's gift of greatness. Their struggle was always one of power, within their societies, within their religions, within themselves. Magic was a responsibility for those both wielding and not. How man treated their own, how man embraced or denied magic, how man strived for goodness through the blood and the blame, these were the definitions of their age. It was never a question of man against the magic, it was a question of man within the magic. This war was a blinding recognition of failures on both sides. Hawke knew this. Hawke knew that naturally she'd have to choose the side of mage, no matter the atrocities she'd seen. And she knew Fenris could not make the same choice.

She'd be lying if she said she hasn't laid awake at nights preparing for this. She'd imagine watching him from the opposite side of his blood-stained greatsword. But here he stands. And she could never imagine his eyes at this moment. His stare seems a demand. She chuckles softly at the thought. She had called him selfish once, and he would not shy away from it now. But when she thinks on it, she figures he of all people should be allowed a little selfishness. His stare presents a deal to Hawke. He offers his help, his protection, and only because it is her life at stake here, in exchange for the understanding that it is only her life that concerns him any longer. He has already put his to rest. He has already had his funeral for Leto.

There is no backing down from this moment. No back-peddling of time, no distraction with false words and useless platitudes. This is Fenris. This is Fenris ready to be in it. Knee-deep and muddied and inescapable. This is Fenris when he is terrified and shaking and unable to understand why, why he wants to be so vulnerable with her. Unable to understand how he could stand his own weakness when around her. Unable to understand why it thrills him so to see her like this, angry and righteous and trembling.

She shoves away from the rail of the boat and steps before him. Her back is stiff and straight, her eyes unwavering from his. She understands as much as he does, what they may each lose, what they may each take away scarred and tainted from this union. They have each known enough dead and known enough dying to risk this exhilarating, unknowable tangle of emotion. They have each loathed enough to risk love.

His hand finds her neck, cradles her jaw before he leans in harshly, pulls her lips to his as though he is a man drowning. His hand on her hip tells her he's not leaving. Her breath in his mouth tells him she's ready.

They dive into the wild dark, fingers laced tightly.

Author's Note: Thank you for those of you who kept with me and my slow updates. Your love and reviews are oh so appreciated. Also special thanks to FenZev. I feel honored by your comments on my story from someone so involved in the Dragon Age fiction community, considering this is my first delve into it. I really enjoyed challenging myself with this pair and this style of writing. It has been an immensely fulfilling and satisfying experience. Thanks for stopping in readers. Hope you enjoyed.