CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION

Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING

Chapter Chapter 16: Fog

He knew many of the dead.

Maris, a Silvangali with three children and a wife already dead by Tevinter. Fyrna, a Tempii, barely twenty one. Acaria, her one-eyed older sister, the scar spreading through half of her face, and he remembered that he'd asked her once about how she did not seem thrown off by fire… she'd laughed. It's not fire that did this to me, she'd said, it's the Vints. Why would I blame fire? I know who my enemy is.

She was lying on the cavern floor now, her good eye closed and blackened.

One third of the Warriors was dead.

One out of three people that spoke to him, that cheered at him, that had welcomed him in and accepted his bloodright to be one of them, a white-haired white-faced ghost in the fog… that had named the warrior of their legend, and that had stayed to defend the camp when he'd said it was the right thing to do.

He kneeled motionlessly at the feet of the bodies, staring at the white symbols on the basalt walls. They were freshly made. Many – as the uncertain, wavy lines betrayed – by children of the dead.

One third of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the tribe… dead. A memory floated in, unwilling, and he squeezed his eyes shut, wishing it away…

Verra's eyes, impossibly big, shocked eyes, her hand outstretched as she reaches to touch her dead mother's still face. The blood leaves a mark on her hand. The kid flinches, brings the hand back to her face, staring at it, as if looking for a world where it makes sense.

He thinks about Asha.

Verra is younger than Asha when her family dies a bloody, violent death in front of her.

He listened to the other side of the cave, where the wounded lied. The healers walked around them, the worst averted; there had been no more shuffling from the alive side to the dead side for hours now. Those who'd been doomed to die had died.

This is the way of Seheron.

A tight fist held his insides, one that clenched more and more painfully with every body he was looking at. Hawke had been with the other healers from the moment their funeral procession arrived at the camp; she wasn't that sort of a mage, but there had been more than enough experience in the field to have prepared her for this type of injuries. And then she had worked with the abomination, a long time ago… back in Kirkwall, which had still at that point been more than just a flaming ruin.

He let out a shaky breath.

The Fog Warriors don't grieve.

It wasn't what he was feeling. And it wasn't what he was seeing around him.

Vindr walked silently to his side, butting his arm in a friendly, comforting way. He patted the head of the mabari, noticing thoughtlessly that someone had cleaned the blood off his thick short fur. The dog looked at him, gathered that Fenris was not going to move, and then laid down at his side, sympathetic brown eyes on the long line of corpses.

Suddenly Fenris felt a pang of homesickness so strong it almost made him gasp.

It didn't make sense. He didn't have a home. The mansion back in Kirkwall had served its purpose, but outlived it with the rest of the city. Hawke's mansion was the same – familiar, but never his. The Fog Warrior camp was the closest he could ever call his own, with the tent with lightning patterns on the leathers, but even so – it was just a stop in the journey. Just one more stop.

So why was he feeling like that – like the very fundaments of his life were fleeting away, crumbling from under him, and the only way to stop it was to run back somewhere safe – home?

Vindr cast him a worried look, and Fenris realised he was shaking. He put his hand on the dog's neck, trying to calm himself. The Fog Warriors are dead. But they live to die for their own freedom. They live their lives from battle to battle, and… and…

The wide-opened, dead eyes of a girl staring at the blood on her hand flashed in his mind again.

Am I the reason for it?

Was I the reason for it, ten years ago? Was I, Asha?

A Coruscati. A right of blood he'd spilt, sunk in the ground of Seheron. But that blood was long gone now, forgotten… and he was nothing but the bringer of death. First he brought them Tevinter… now it would be the Qunari. They should have vanished from the caverns long before.

And yet he told them to stay and fight.

He fixed his eyes on the ground again.

The steps approaching him pulled his out of his silent reverie. There was only one pair of legs on Seheron that made this much noise in its approach, and judging by Vindr's perked-up ears, he knew that too.

Hawke slipped to her knees at his side, her aura enveloping him like a blanket. She rested her head in the crook of his shoulder.

They stayed silent for a long moment, and the tight knot in his stomach loosened just a tiny fraction of an inch. There was still death and mourning and incomprehensible horror of the world spreading right in front of him, but – but –

But they had already lived through it.

And they were still there.

Through so much death and destruction, we live on. Even when the pieces of our souls chip off in the fall, we live on. He opened his arms and she hugged him tight, pressing her face to his chest and digging her fingers through the leathers, just to reach the skin under the layers of armour-

And the last person he'd ever want to think about slipped into his mind, another unwanted memory pouring in as if someone sliced his brain clean. The abomination, years ago in Kirkwall. The conversation Hawke and he had at Satinalia, Fenris listening with obsessive jealousy as she talked to Anders about his sister and the pain of losing her family…

And the abomination responded with the tale of his own…

Were they my responsibility? Absolutely. But they weren't my fault.

There was more than enough death Anders was guilty of. But that was now. Back then, when the city had still been whole and Leandra had still been alive, the only crime he had been guilty of was making Hawke trust him.

Responsibility. But not fault.

He stared at the dead bodies in front of him, holding the woman he loved in his arms. He understood now why she'd been carrying a list of the dead under her shirt; a bloodright of her own, a promise sealed by death. The Champion's duty. The Warrior's responsibility…

He closed his eyes, unwilling to let go of the tears that threatened to spill his grief. Just want to go home-

I'm sorry, he repeated in his mind, his arms clutching around Hawke like a lifeline, once for every man and woman that had lost their lives in the proud, ill-conceived attempt to stay, stand their ground… for every one out of three Fog Warriors that had welcomed him, for every one out of three that had left the children behind, for every one out of three that would not have mourned, that would have marked their losses and… and lived on. This was my responsibility. I'm sorry.

Maybe he wasn't a Fog Warrior after all.

He grieved.

A calloused hand closed on his shoulder from behind, and he shuddered, reflexively reaching for the sword-

The funeral, signed Asha on his skin, and walked away.

-/-

It was the second funeral that he'd ever attended. And despite all the differences – there was no Revered Mother to say the prayers now, the circle of fog dancers gathered around the fire instead, and there were white runes staining the basalt stone instead of flowery garlands wreathing around the sky-high Chantry columns, the last gift from Sebastian – the fire burned tall and white in the high-ceilinged cave, spreading its glow at his feet, its crackling filling the emptiness that his thoughts had left in the mind.

Hawke's hand was warm in his.

Perhaps that was the biggest difference.

The survivors had put the bodies of their fallen kin in a long row before the fog dancers' fire. There were five of them, one for each tribe: the Silvangali, dressed in dark green, the Tempii in violet, the Piveri in red, the Andurili – the elves – in misty blue, and the Herondini in deep brown. Together they did not even fill the breadth of the cavern.

The long lines of the warriors stood at the fire, their faces calm, impassive, waiting.

But there was a hole in the fog dancers' formation, the six-legged rune that ran over the height of the fireplace along the tall wall of the cave, and Fenris' heart shrunk at the sight. He found Asha in the crowd; she was close to the fire, eyeing the dancers as they spoke together, their voices hushed in an incantation. She obviously hesitated. There was a hole in the formation, and she was the only one not wearing green, violet, red, blue, or brown.

The Coruscati wore grey.

But the dancers shifted, changed positions, and the gap closed. There was no surprise on Asha's face, just grim resignation.

And it reminded him of Hawke's face just days after the Kirkwall had been destroyed…

He tugged at Hawke's hand and she followed him closer to the fire, passing the lines of the warriors until they came closer to Asha. The woman looked at him, and for the first time Fenris noticed the line of age crossing the face far too young for it.

She wasn't trying to rebuilt the tribe. She was the tribe, the last of the bloodline, the chief and the dancer, desperately trying to keep the Coruscati and the Fog Warriors alive like generations before her. And just one look at her face made it clear that the decision to stay and fight – the decision that he had taken as his – was weighting on her even harder.

Hawke took a look at her, then at him. She gave a tiny nod, of approval or encouragement, and let go of his hand.

It was his turn to grow.

"Asha," he said in a low voice, taking one step closer. "I had a sister in Tevinter."

She cast him an empty glance. "I had brothers here."

"Her name was Varania." He remembered the thrill that he'd felt when he'd read the name for the first time. "I brought her to Kirkwall, but she betrayed me. She took my… former master with her to recapture me. She was a mage in his household."

Pity glimmered in Asha's eyes. "Betrayal of your kin hits the hardest."

"It was easier to think I did not have a sister. No allegiances except what I chose to give. Except my duty to Hawke."

The pity changed into something harder and colder. "You forgot us."

"I thought there was no way back. The death I brought…" He trailed off, terrified for a split second that his voice would break.

"The death Tevinter brought," she corrected him impassively. There was still the echo of the burn in her eyes.

Fenris cursed himself. The words never came easily to him, and not less so when he was trying to express something as complex and painful as this. "You think this is your fault, for making the Warriors stay and fight," he said bluntly, and the burn in Asha's eyes died down.

"Yes."

"I made the decision too." And because Tevene was the worst language to express emotions, he reached out and signed a simple mark on her forearm.

Two lines, going through an unbroken circle.

Your brother.

And another one: a rune of the Fog Warriors, a lightning bolt spreading its long tail at the bottom.

Coruscati.

She looked at him, and there were no tears in her eyes, no pain, no sorrow. The blank expression that marked grief in Fog Warriors. Just – a hint of light at the bottom, just the slightest glimmer of hope –

"I can bear this weight with you," he said, not trusting his voice, but past the point of caring. Hawke was watching him, an uncertain half-smile on her face, and he knew that it was no accident that the two women in his life were crushed by the same burden, the same responsibility, the same pain. And this time, he knew what to do about it. "I want to. "

And Asha squeezed his hand on her arm so hard he winced. Even with an injured shoulder, the woman was way too strong for her own good.

"Took you long enough," she said in a low voice, letting go. He fought to urge to shake his aching hand; Hawke raised an eyebrow at him.

But then the drums started resounding, and all eyes of the Fog Warriors were on the dancers. It felt good, Fenris realised, to think about something else than the bodies along the walls; but his attention was brought back to them with a painful slap.

Claiming responsibility was hollow without remembering the dead.

And so, Asha at his left side and Hawke at his right, he watched as the dancers went along the rows of the bodies, calling out the names of the fallen; the names he'd known, heard in the safety of the camp or on the battlefield. Faces he knew that had smiled at him from the other side of the bonfire, hands he knew that had taught him tricks to clean a blade, to hunt with silent darts, and the sacred alchemy to cook a fog and close it in a sack…

The ceremony dragged, sombre and silent, a reminder of how many lives exactly had been lost. But finally the oils were poured, and dancers passed the torch between them, the white fire crackling with false cheer, always hungry for more – even bodies…

He saw Verra in the first rows of the Silvangali, the hands of her aunts clasped firmly on her small, narrow shoulders, and averted his gaze like he's been burnt.

"Do you know why we don't mourn, Fenris?" Asha asked quietly, and he shook his head wordlessly. They felt grief like every sentient being on Thedas, the funerals were the evidence of it – and he needed no more than to look at Verra's face, tears smudging the white paint on her little round cheeks. But he didn't dare. He kept his head low, squeezing Hawke's small hand in his.

"Because we don't die," said Asha, and he wanted to sneer at that. It was pointless and cruel to say religious bullshit to negate the depth of grief for the families of the fallen, and her own grief, and her own responsibility... "Look."

Despite himself, Fenris looked.

For a second he couldn't see anything, the fires barely flashing through the dense white smoke that spread through the cave. And then he saw the Warriors' silhouettes slowly vanishing in the thickening white veil, opening their arms to the smoke, little Verra grasping for it and crying openly, all pretence of toughness forgotten, and it hit him.

The fog.

Rilus' voice was no louder than a crack of the flames, and yet it resounded in the caves.

"Nothing stays in the ground in Seheron. Nothing stays dead. Even in their death, our kin shield and protect us. The blood they spilt runs through the trees and flies in the winds, and the fog is their breath that gives us safety and victory. We are the children of the ever-living jungle. We are the Fog Warriors. "

He saw Hawke's eyes through the white smoke, shining with shock and sudden understanding.

There was no need for language. She could see the fog.

The fog, the protector, the veil, the saviour, the guarantee of survival in Seheron – the breath of the jungle, the resurrected rain, the closing circle, the – the –

the dead of Seheron.

Nothing stays in the ground. Nothing stays dead.

The blood of Hyruna spilt in the ground, breathed out by the trees and calling-

And now – now –

The thick smoke surrounded him, and for a second he felt he'd suffocate – but Asha was staring at the fog with wide eyes, sobbing openly, reaching out, and the white cloud swirled around her, and for a second he could swear the Warriors stood with them, their white faces blurred by the fog no differently than if they just stood to fight; and then the cloud moved, ebbed softly, a distant laughter still ringing in his ears as an unreal hand patted his shoulder, and Ulda of the Silvangali's voice sounded in the fog, we'll fight together tonight, and then Olor waved at him, big grin on his face as he stood behind Hawke; he reached out but it was nothing but the smoke, nothing but her eyes staring in wide-open surprise behind him, and there, behind him – Asha's sobbing cut off like a broken string – a shadow of an old fog dancer, hair white like his own, not by way of Tevinter, but with age… Hyruna, he wanted to cry out, but the fog throttled the cry in his throat, and he wanted to slump to his knees, to bow for forgiveness, but –

- was it Hawke? was it Asha? was it Hyruna? was it his own knees that did not buckle, you're not a slave, you're a Warrior Who Wielded Lightning, and for all that Tevinter took away, you came back. You came back.

But you didn't, he wanted to say, and the spectre smiled.

I never left.

The fog thickened, and Fenris felt hot tears trickle down his face. No-one would see them. No-one except the ghosts in the fog, the breath of the dead that still protected the Warriors.

"We fall," said the voice of Rilus from far away.

"But we don't remain fallen." The crowd of the Warriors answered without hesitation, loud, open, free sound resonating high under the ceiling of the cave.

"We break."

"But we don't remain broken." The voices were faltering, rasping, throttled by emotion and tears, but they were loud nevertheless. The Fog Warriors did not hide.

"We are the children of the ever-living jungle, the island of Lusaac and the Marchers of Four Winds. Our blood is in every stone and every vine of Seheron, and our spirits are in the fog. And we live on."

"We are the Fog Warriors!" A deafening roar went through the cavern, the crowd weeping and laughing and – and –

Hawke looked at him in the fog. "Your people are mad," she whispered, but there were tears streaming down her face, and she was smiling, a heartbroken expression in her eyes.

Your people.

"We don't... grieve," said Asha in heavily accented Common. She looked straight at Hawke, and for the first time Fenris realised that he'd told Asha about Kirkwall and what happened after. The women stared at each other through the fog, their faces tearstained and puffy, and he thought of all the dead they had left in the Free Marches. Of all the dead here. Of the fog under whose cover he fought from the moment he'd arrived. There was so much death around him and Hawke. "We… live."

Hawke sniffed and nodded.

The fog was swirling around them, and for a moment, between the still-burning funeral pyres and the white smoke coiling on their hair and faces, he could swear the three of them were the only ones in the world.

-/-

The war council was to be in the night, once the pyres had burned away. They had retreated to the tent, the warriors around him talking in hushed voices – for the first time since he'd known them, there was no laughter, no loud speaking in the cavern. But the faces of the Fog Warriors were far from defeated.

He was reminded again and again that they were a people for whom death and war were constant companions. And they had remade their dead into their strongest weapon.

The faces in the fog…

Outside of the tent, he could hear Hawke and Asha talk. The conversation was hushed, torn between two languages and a whole lot of heavy silence, but – despite the long pauses and Asha's clearly guarded tone, it was a mage after all – they kept talking. It really shouldn't be that surprising, Fenris thought, considering how unerringly similar the two of them were.

He contemplated walking out to join them and offer his help with translation, then thought better of it. There were things he did not want to meddle with.

Hawke said something outside of the tent and Asha chuckled – a half-throttled, but undeniably sincere sound. He turned his head away and started cleaning the sword, a smile tugging at the side of his lips.

-/-

-/-

-/-

Chapter sixteen, in which we talk about grief. ... who am I kidding this entire fic is about grief. And processing it.

This chapter was meant to be longer, also encompassing the war council that comes immediately after, but stuff's happening again and I'm flying out to England tonight, so I'll probably finish the next one after Sunday. Sorry to be so slow, we're literally on a final stretch now! Bear with me!

In the meantime, I can tell you I've already finished off the last bit of the epilogue, in which Hawke shares her hard-won wisdom with her former teacher... but that's for much later. Just wanted to let you guys know that it *is* there.

Also: FOG WARRIORS. FOOOG WARRIORRRRSSSSS.