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This was to be the end of him.
Fenris knew when he set out on this endeavor that it would be the end of him, though he didn’t imagine it would be like this. He had imagined, fist clenching around that worn roll of parchment and lyrium markings sparking in his pain, that it would be a blaze of glory. Out in the open, the beating heart of a magister clutched in his fist, one last, final moment of satisfaction.
“We know you’re in there, elf.” A voice called, muffled through the wooden doors, taunting over the ringing in his ears from a very well-placed fireball. “Come out and we might be merciful.”
He almost laughed at that, the noise tapering off wetly as he tasted blood in his mouth. Mercy was a concept the masters of Tevinter had no concept of, and neither would their dogs. Fenris had no illusions of making it out of this confrontation; he was slowly bleeding out, there were arrows that pierced his body, and fire left his left leg burnt and damaged beyond the ability to walk.
So, he didn’t think he could come out even if he wanted to.
It rankled his pride a bit, the thought that he would die barricaded in an abandoned shack. What would she say if she could see him now? Probably make some horrible comment about him using blood instead of wine to decorate the walls, terrible beast that she was.
Fenris brushed his fingers across the scrap of red silk, dutifully kept around his wrist. It was tattered around the edges, stained, and faded from the years he’d kept it on hand. It was dark, heavy, and wet from the blood leaking down his arm, this token that had kept him going for the past month.
They had set out to cut a swath through the slavers of Tevinter, to shatter the injustice that supported the Imperium, and oh how they’d succeeded. She’d always known how to make him happy, and the prospect of carving a bloody trail back to his homeland made him very happy. And then the Inquisition had called, and she had answered.
And now she was gone.
Fenris could hear them pounding and battering the door. It wouldn’t be long before they broke through. His grip tightened on the hilt of his sword—a gift from her of course—and he heaved himself up. He would not die on his knees. He would face his attackers, and he would take as many of them out as he could possibly manage.
“I’ll be with you soon, Amatus.” He promised, lips pressing to the favor and coming away sticky red with blood. “Soon.”
Fenris didn’t know what happened after death, didn’t know if he would find her again in the Fade, and they would pass through to the Maker’s side. It sounded like a platitude, some way to reassure those frightened by the unknown. What he did know, however, that whatever was to come would be an improvement on living in a world without her.
The door splintered, and his lyrium brands flickered to life. He wouldn’t be able to do much, as injured as he was, but he would be damned if he gave up easily.
“Ah, there we are. Bloody little—“
The earth shook as an ear-splitting roar rattled the skies, spreading chaos. Fenris could see the slavers scatter, heads turning to the sky at the familiar sound of a dragon. A dragon in the middle of Qarinus? He would consider himself hallucinating if he couldn’t hear the screams, smell the burning flesh, feel the heat from the fire in waves from the open door.
He was reminded, in a way, of the story she had told him, their flight from Ferelden and how a dragon had swooped in to save the day.
He hadn’t believed her at first, sounded like the sort of thing that Varric would write, and yet all four of them had insisted. And now, here they were, he was in dire straits and there was a dragon swooping in to save the day.
As though he wasn’t meant to die today.
Laughable, really, and as Fenris slumped back against the crates he wished desperately for one last bottle of the Agreggio. It wouldn’t stop anything—he was bleeding out, he was going to die with or without a dragon—but it would make it a little more bearable. Until he was with her again.
Fenris was tired of fighting, tired of walking this life. It had been his fight for so long, he didn’t think he could do it anymore. Not without her.
His head fell back against his makeshift cover, eyes drifting shut.
Long, pointed ears twitched at the sound of heeled boots clicking on the stone behind him, and he let out a long sigh. “Here to finish the job? There was a dragon out there you know.”
“So I heard.” His heart skipped a beat at the sound of that soft, rasping voice, and he forced his eyes open, trying in earnest to sit up. “I notice you’ve switched from wine to blood for your decorations, it’s a nice touch. No mushrooms growing out of the floor this time.”
He stared at her disbelievingly, taking in the sight of the woman he thought he’d never see again. “You’re dead. This is a trick of the Fade.”
There was a scar, it cut across her forehead, along the bridge of her nose and her cheek—that was new. Her hair had been shorn short, as though burned off and given a bit of time to regrow. A month since he’d seen her, she was gaunt, her armor hung off her body, as familiar as the back of his own hand.
“Yeah.” She agreed, crouching in front of him and reaching over to cup his face in the palm of her hand. “What say we get out of here, I’ll tell you all about it?”
“Hawke.” He grit his teeth at the burn of her magic, green tinged with silver, mapping out every wrong in his body and setting it right again.
The touch of personal magic, intimate and sorely missed for the past month, it soothed something that had been aching, hollow and empty. “Hayden.”
“Fenris.” Her face softened, crooked, and knobbed fingers curling around his neck and digging into his hair. “I’m sorry. Maker’s tits I’m so sorry. I wanted to come home, but I couldn’t—I missed you so much.”
Her body sank into his, and it felt like home.
“I can’t walk.” His leg was healed, yes—a part of Fenris worried about her mana reserves, but she seemed perfectly serene—but he’d lost too much blood. “They told me you were dead.”
“They thought I did.” Hayden answered, pulling back and kissing his forehead. “Let me get you somewhere safe, I’ll tell you about it. You won’t believe me.”
He probably wouldn’t. She’d been left in the Fade, physically. And somehow escaped?
“The dragon?” Fenris coughed, letting her pull him to his feet.
It felt so natural to let her support his weight, something shifting into place inside of him, right back where it was supposed to be. She flashed him that wide, mischievous flash of a smile, beautiful and familiar it warmed him through and through like sunshine.
“I have a lot to tell you.”