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"Aren't you a little short for a Templar?"
Fenris stiffens his posture. "Excuse me?"
The man leans against the woodstack, smirking at him. He crosses his arms. "Nevermind, apologies. I know all the Templars here, you're new. Hell of a time to get sent to Lothering, eh?"
Hell of a time to get shipwrecked off the Amaranthine coast and hunted across the Ferelden Bannorn by White Falcon mercenaries chasing a bounty, Fenris thinks.
"Yes," Fenris says. "You should move on, if you can. This place is lost."
"It's lost," the man says airily. "But it's home." He brushes the hair out of his face, gazing past Fenris to someplace over the bridge. "No, I expect to be out of here by sunset, just waiting for a prodigal brother of mine to come riding down that horizon." He points, and Fenris turns to see the bone-white vertebral arches of the Imperial Highway and the sun hanging low over it. "The not-so-conquering hero, returned from Ostagar."
"There are darkspawn all along the roads to the south, and Ostagar was a slaughter. You can't be sure he'll come."
"Harsh truths from a Knight-Templar." The man nods to him, the serious tilt of his brow belying his mocking tone. "Something we could all use more of, I'm sure. But my brother knows how to take care of himself, I have no doubt we'll see him sooner or later."
For the thousandth time today, Fenris curses himself for getting trapped in this shitshow. He's playing the role of shitclown, and this oversized set of plate is his clown suit. As it is like to be his casket.
Through the slit in his helm, he can just see the man in red steel mail, cleaning his nails by the chantry gate. He looks up and raises a hand. Fenris turns away.
He grits his teeth. The massive, echoing helm at least grants him freedom of facial expression. "I'm sure," he says. "Now, I must see to--"
The man sticks out his hand. "Call me Hawke. I have a first name, but no one uses it these days except family. And I don't think we're that close yet, unfortunately."
He's young, good-looking, dark in complexion and wearing a close-trimmed beard and a belted tunic which, cropped at the shoulders in the Ferelden style, bares his well-muscled arms. Though he lacks the traditional peasant's slouch and, rather, has the stance and carriage of a man who knows how to use his own body, Fenris could easily see this attributed to vague athleticism and natural arrogance rather than any extensive combat training, because he's been watching this Hawke amble around the village all day and he does indeed appear to be utterly local. He'd guess a farmer's firstborn who thinks highly of himself for being heir to his father's land. Or for being Lothering's reigning potato sack race champion, whatever it is these people consider admirable or interesting.
Still, Fenris has been burned by his fair share of farmers' sons in the two years since he left Seheron. Figuratively and, once, literally. That farmer's son threw a tray of embers at him, an attempt to stun him long enough for the slavehunter to subdue him—Largely ineffective, but Fenris did have some unpleasant blistering to deal with afterwards.
This farmer's son, Hawke, holds his hand out and smiles.
The fire-thrower also smiled. No, Fenris is going to watch this one just as closely as he's watching the three mercenaries hovering around the chantry, the bridge, and the apple cart, respectively.
Fenris doesn't want to touch him, but he feels like refusing would make him look suspicious. He takes his hand and Hawke pumps his arm up and down, armor rattling. Fenris wants to hit him, but that would most definitely look suspicious.
"And what's your name?"
"You may call me Ser Jon." That was this armor's former occupant's name. It was very kind of him to tell Fenris that before he tore his heart from his chest—For some reason, when he asks people questions before killing them, they always seem to think he's planning on showing them mercy. Baffling, but convenient.
"May I call you that? Ser Jon, would your family name happen to be Doe?"
Fenris doesn't understand what this is supposed to mean, but he decides it's insulting. "It's Kettlemaker. If you don't mind," he says through his teeth. "I have work to do."
"No, you don't. You've been standing around all day, same as I have. Your job is warding off newcomers, and no one's come around in hours. Might as well have some friendly banter while we await destruction, instead of just..." He sighs. His eyes drift toward the Imperial Highway. "Brooding."
"I don't brood. You may brood all you wish."
"Oh, I think you brood. You look like a top-class brooder to me, Ser. I'm quite sure there's some fantastically pensive scowling going on under that visor of yours. Among other things..."
Fenris walks away from him, taking up a post near the bridge instead. On the other side, a man with his hair braided back and a short sword at his hip is resting his elbows on the side of the bridge.
"G'day," he says. Knife-ear, he mouths.
"Good day," Fenris says, and goes back to the woodstack.
At least six armed mercenaries, counting the ones he spotted entering the tavern, and potentially anywhere between two and four Knight-Templars who suddenly realize that Ser Jon is not Ser Jon, is not necessarily more than Fenris could take on alone. He has managed worse. Once. The number of people who could be caught in the crossfire is not, however, something Fenris takes lightly. Nor is the inevitable persecution of the Chantry, should he be identified as the murderer of their shining knights.
And Fenris is, admittedly, not in top form. The day has been long.
For the thousand and first time today, Fenris curses himself for getting trapped in this shitshow.
They've been chasing him for weeks. Whenever Fenris kills one, another falls into their place. Danarius must have raised the price on his head.
Hawke is, thankfully, nowhere to be seen: moved on to some target more responsive to his harassment, it would seem.
Moments pass, and Fenris hears a crunch. He turns, and Hawke is back at the woodstack, a half-eaten apple in his hand. He chews and flashes a grin.
Fenris sneers under his helm and turns his back on him.
"Gotta be hungry though, don't you? Saw you eyeing the apple cart, earlier."
The last Fenris ate was the stew at the Redcliffe inn, two nights ago. He hasn't had a drink since he began his walk on the Highway, hours and hours ago, just after sunrise; he can imagine, vividly, what the juice would feel like on his throat. He says, disinterestedly, "You've graduated to open taunting, then."
"Not at all, I'm offering. I have a second right here."
Fenris glances back and Hawke is tossing a shining red apple in the air; it lands in his hand with a quiet smack, and rolls back up. Fenris turns away.
"Unfortunately, I am not a horse, and not so easily won over. Good day, serah."
"You'd have to take off that helmet to eat."
"Superb observation."
"You know, none of the other Templars are wearing theirs. Too hot for it, don't you think? Looks a tad odd, like perhaps you're hiding something. An embarrassing personal defect? Some kind of abnormality, such as, I don't know... Large ears?"
You have no idea.
He tosses the apple core over his shoulder; it bounces off the wall of the house behind him and tumbles down the woodstack, to the ground. The other apple, the bait apple, he tosses from hand to hand.
"Yes, we have all sorts of elves around here. Elves who're farmhands, elves who're refugees. Redheaded elves, black-haired elves, elves both short and..." He eyes Fenris. "Tall. For elves. Which is still fairly short next to most humans, I've noticed."
"Is it."
"They don't let elves into the Order, you know."
"I am aware."
"I think that's crude discrimination. Elves are just as capable of hating mages as anyone."
Yes. "I wouldn't know."
"And we had a new elf here a little while ago, quite a magey-looking fellow traveling with a notorious local apostate. You saw them?" It's not really a question, because he saw Fenris talking to them. He's been here all day, loitering around outside the tavern.
"I saw them. I didn't know that they were mages." Fenris did know they were mages, because the lyrium veins set in his skin hummed with their magic when they were near. He knew, as well, that they were Grey Wardens, because they were so damn obvious about it. He just didn't see what he could do about it without outing himself or endangering the dozens of nearby refugees; he told them there was nothing for them here and suggested they leave, immediately.
"Oh, really?" Hawke cocks his head, hands cradling the apple like a string of prayer beads. "I thought you were just being a pal, letting 'em off with a warning considering the impending doom and all. It was pretty obvious, if you knew what to look for. I don't think the elf was used to the apostate game, he had an aura up for oh, a good fifteen minutes in town here. Curious you didn't notice!"
"Curious that you did."
He scoffs. "Not that curious. My father was a mercenary, way back in his rambling days, and he saw his fair share of spellbinders. Taught me what to look for, you know, might just save my skin someday."
Fenris had been drifting, somewhat, under the heat, the exhaustion, the stress of the day and what was yet to come—Suddenly, his vision comes into sharp focus. He takes in this "farmer's son" again, and reconsiders the dark scars under the bend of either elbow. Under the collar of his tunic, Fenris sees for the first time a tarnished gold chain—on this could hang a simple memento, or it could carry an enchanted amulet. "Your father was a mercenary?"
"Oh, yes."
"May I ask if he worked for... Any company in particular?"
"That means something to you, then?" Hawke taps his nose and takes a few languid steps closer, a swinging balance and all his weight on off-beat heels, and as he does, Fenris's skin begins to hum: a low, steady thrum strong enough to leave a taste of sulfur in his mouth and send a shot of pain up his arm; his hand twitches, involuntarily.
"Father did work for a few, over the years. Blackstone Irregulars, as the Hawkwinds are loose relations, probably. Never really could tell if that was a joke or not, but ol' Raelnor and Father seemed to get along well enough anyway." He counts off on his fingers: "The Irregulars, Crimson Oars before that, and once or twice, the White Falcons."
Fenris's hands are cold, despite the heat of a day spent cooking under the sun that is trapped, steaming, in his armor. "Step back."
The mage raises a brow and takes one, then two full steps back.
"Your father, he's out of that business?"
"He's two years dead, yes."
"And have you gone into the family business, as it were?"
"Mercenary work isn't a crime. Murder is a crime, but the two don't necessarily go together."
"So you have."
"In fact, no. I have no knack for swordplay, can't even handle--" He pulls something out of a pouch on his belt and, with the flick of a wrist, reveals a the blade of a peasant knife. "--This old boy without cutting myself, honestly. I'm a farmer. Mundane though it makes me."
Fenris doesn't take his eyes off the knife. Noticing his change in stance—ready to draw the blade at his back at the slightest motion—Hawke slowly, deliberately sheaths the knife in its handle and places it back in his belt pocket. He exhales a laugh.
"White Falcons, then."
Fenris closes the distance between them—Not, as Hawke did, with the teasing nonchalance of a cat circling a caged sparrow, but deliberately and at once: if the clatter of his armor draws eyes, their attention will be a flicker because Fenris moves with no unnecessary flair, and they are already in the shadow of the house, already concealed behind the pile of wood, and this Hawke's back is to the wall and he, at once, looks much less jovial. Rather, his hands are clasping at the clay wall; his surprised smile is more of an appeal. Woah, hey, he says. If Fenris could smell anything but his own sweat, he's sure he'd smell the fear roll off him.
He curls a gauntletted hand into Hawke's tunic, just over his heart.
"If you're one of them, mage." Fenris watches his smile disappear, that quickly. "You know that I'm no idle prey, and you know what I can and will do. Don't expect to intimidate me, don't expect to ensorcell me, don't expect me to let my guard down for a moment. If you're one of them, you'll die with them."
He's barely breathing. Fenris feels, in his skin, the pulse of Hawke's magic skip, and if he tried to cast a mind stun Fenris would resist, and Fenris would tear through his chest to where his heart races.
Hawke doesn't cast. He draws a deep, sudden breath. "I'm really not."
"Why don't I believe you?" Fenris tightens his grip. "Mage."
His face twists into a sneer for a second, only a second, but then his eyes drift down to Fenris's hand on his chest. Hawke clears his throat. "Ah, friend, you're glowing."
Fenris looks at his hand, blue light seeping through the cracks of the gauntlet.
Fenhedis.
"Might want to--" Hawke grabs his arm and Fenris shoves him off; Hawke huffs and jerks his head to the side, to the alley between two houses. "Hide," he hisses.
And he isn't wrong.
Fenris slips into the alley; neither of the houses have windows facing it, and the other end of the ally is blocked by the river but one house's gutter hangs low enough that Fenris could climb onto the roof if he had to. Hawke follows him; Fenris tells him to keep his distance and he balks near the alley's mouth, but the mage doesn't leave.
He grabs one of the wooden beams supporting the house, as if to hold himself back, and in an earnest whisper says, "Look, you've got friends here. I don't know how you got that armor, and I want to know but I won't ask, but I think it means that someone out there has your blood in a vial. Did you come from Kinloch Hold? If you're from the Circle here, you should get out of the country. Cross the sea, if you can, it makes it harder for them to track you—The Osmonds are setting out for Highever tonight, I can get you on their wagon and from there you can buy passage to the Marches, and—"
"I am not." Fenris swallows, throat almost too dry, and lowers his voice. "A mage."
Hawke widens his eyes. "...Okay."
Fenris pulls off a gauntlet and throws it to the ground, and he splays his hand out, lyrium veins fading but still bright, for this human's consideration. Hawke leans closer and furrows his brow.
"That's..."
"Lyrium. This was done to me by mages. I am on the run from mages."
He drags a hand down his face, still staring, clearly struggling to regain his bearings. "So, so... A Circle wouldn't allow that, and an apostate couldn't have the kinds of resources you'd need to... So, that means... You're from... You're from?"
"Tevinter."
Hawke cringes.
"Yes," Fenris agrees. "The man who used to wear this armor thought the same thing that you did and refused to hear reason. That's why he's dead, and if you do not watch yourself," he hisses. "You'll reach the same end."
Fenris met Ser Jon on the road. He had, conveniently, been carrying his armor in a pack for ease of travel, and ease of killing. Taking it with him was unbelievably foolish, but it served Fenris well in the end.
Or not. It would seem, at this point, not.
Hawke's aspect is grim; his eyes are tracking something above, drifting to the Imperial Highway. "You fled Tevinter. You have a bounty on your head?"
"Those men, out there." Fenris stays in the shadows, near the wall, and points to the chantry, the bridge, and the apple cart in turn. "There, there, and there. More in the tavern. They've been chasing me since I landed in Highever. I put on this armor to throw them off, but the Templars here stopped me when I tried to pass through." He was at the window in his room in an inn outside Redcliffe and he saw a dozen White Falcons, distinctively armed to the teeth, coming down the road. The tavern below his room was full of them when he walked out in his stolen armor. This morning, after a night putting distance between himself and Redcliffe, Ser Bryant saw him coming down the Highway. He should gamble more, his luck is phenomenal.
"They don't know I'm not one of them," Fenris continues, ducking back into the alley. "But they need more people here keeping order. The White Falcons followed my trail here before I could slip away—They've figured out what I am, they've made that much clear. I believe that they're waiting until nightfall to make their move—there are too many civilians here, and I look like a Knight-Templar to the people and to the other Knight-Templars." While it is a fight they could conceivably win, they must know they'd suffer losses, and probably wouldn't get out of it without a count or two of murder, possibly against a Knight-Templar—which is a crime in the kingdom of Ferelden.
"Well, let me get you out of here before nightfall."
"So you may deliver me to them for a reward?"
"So I can get you away from them. Mage does not equal devious slimy bastard. Not necessarily, anyway."
"In my experience, it does." Fenris picks his gauntlet up off the ground and pulls it, with some difficulty, onto his hand. "If I'm out of sight too long, we're like to get a brawl in the middle of the market. If you draw attention to me or say anything to anyone, mage, just know that you'll go down with me."
Hawke laughs, scowling. "Noted!"
Fenris storms out of the alley, directly into the man in the red steel, the man with the braids, and the woman with one eye.
He sneers beneath his helm. "Out of my way."
The one-eyed woman sets a hand on her shoulder, where the strap of her quiver hangs. "Or not," she says. "Really, Fenris, we just want to talk."
A brawl it is, then.
Hawke strides past him, beaming at the mercenaries.
"Pleasure to meet you, serahs!" He clasps his hands around the braid-wearing mercenary's and shakes. "The one good thing about this Blight is how it's bringing so many interesting people to Lothering. And how it's driving so many people out!"
As he speaks, his hands warm to a glowing red. The mercenary gasps and tries to pull away, but Hawke tightens his grip and yanks him closer.
"I'd suggest you get on your way, friend. There's a dark fate coming to those who linger here."
Hawke releases his hand and the mercenary stumbles back, clutching his wrist as his skin begins to blister. The one-eyed woman slings an arm around his shoulders and whispers darkly to the man in red steel.
"What if we tell that Knight-Captain about you, mage?"
"I'll tell him you're bounty hunters."
"We'll tell him the elf's an imposter."
"We'll all go down, then. How's that sound to you?"
"We'll be seeing you," she says, and leads the other two across the market, into the tavern.
Hawke smiles at Fenris. Fenris bites back a scream.
"I didn't ask you to do that. Mage."
"And yet, I did. No need to thank me, a simple 'I won't tell if you don't tell' will do."
"All you've done is make them angry—Now they know that an attack in the daylight is to their advantage, because my mage will have to restrain himself. You've put everyone here in danger."
Hawke shrugs. "That just means we have to be fast."
He grabs at Fenris's arm again and again, Fenris shoves him off; nonplussed, Hawke says Come on and takes off, around the corner and down toward the other end of the market, toward the windmill that rises over the houses and walls.
And Fenris doesn't have to follow him. Fenris could, certainly, find a way out of this by himself. He's done it a thousand times before. He highly doubts that he would die.
However—If Hawke's intentions are, against all odds, good—It would make things much, much easier. Much easier.
As he hurries after Hawke, a red-haired Templar calls after him—"Ser Jon! Where are you going?"
"I believe that man is an apostate!"
"Him? That's just--"
"I can handle him! Don't follow me!"
"--Ser Jon, that's just Hawke! He's harm—Oh, suit yourself."
He catches up with Hawke at the edge of town, near the Qunari in a cage. "Over there," he says, and Fenris follows him through a field, over a hill, along the lake until the lake runs shallow and they cross—the water so cool and so tempting—And Hawke leads him through a thicket of trees, over a crumbling wall, and he says, "This is my mother's land. If any of those bastards follow us here, I can kill them under full sanction of the king's law."
"So you could kill me as well."
"No, you have guest right. Well, not technically until I give you salt and bread, but—Hmm. Actually, if you're an elf, I think I could legally murder you anywhere. I suspect I wouldn't succeed if I tried, though. You're terrifying, truly."
"You wouldn't." Fenris, finally, undoes his chinstrap, lifts the tin pail of a helm off his head and takes a breath of fresh air, almost as good as water. The helmet rolls in the grass and he drags his fingers back through his hair, a full day's sweat having plastered it to his skull.
Hawke takes a step back, laughing. "Maker, you're something."
He's happy—relieved enough to almost smile. "You find the way I look amusing?"
"You're gorgeous. Sorry, I didn't mean any offense. Just startled me."
"Ah." Fenris tugs at his gorget, to little effect. "Not interested."
Hawke smiles brightly. "Wasn't propositioning. Just an observation."
A clatter in the distance. Hawke starts along the wall. "Let's not, though," he murmurs. "Let's just not. This way, I want to get away from the house."
Fenris falls into step behind him. "You have a family here?"
"Let's just keep our distance from them, shall we?"
"You shouldn't have brought me here."
"You're welcome," he says, and they creep through a field of wheat, and Fenris drops a gauntlet as he goes so that he might feel the stalks brush against his fingers.
Something this small is a luxury after today. The breeze on his face is a luxury; he has to remind himself not to anticipate water or food—apples, he imagines specifically—until he has them, and not to anticipate rest until he is miles and miles gone, until the clamor of voices behind them and behind Hawke's wall are hours in the past.
There could, easily, be more to come.
"You see that hill, on the other side of the field?" Hawke points ahead, where the land crest sharply over a grove of trees. "You wouldn't know it, but it's two hills. If you walk between them, you'll find a trail that leads straight to the bank of the Drakkon. The river runs about the same path as the Highway, but a little less obvious, yes? You can follow that to Denerim, if you have a week, but there are a dozen little inns and places along the way."
"I can find my own way."
"Sure," he says, and as they step out of the field, wheat rustling behind them, nods at Fenris and says, "You can't take that armor with you."
Fenris is already tearing off his remaining gauntlet.
He pulls at the knot tying the sash at his waist and Hawke moves to stand at his back; Fenris jerks away.
Hawke holds his arms out, as if to say, Look at me, I have nothing. "Let me get your buckles."
"I can get them myself."
"You're wasting time, please."
Fenris hesitates. Hawke takes the peasant knife from his belt and hurls it into the wheat field.
"I've only helped so far, please."
"As if you need a knife." But once again, he isn't wrong, and Fenris grits his teeth and lets Hawke reach under his arm and undo the buckle strapping the pauldron to his shoulder. With his free arm, Fenris tugs the sash free; as it falls, a breeze picks it up and carries it a few feet away to drape over the heads of wheat, like a cloth draped over some misshapen corpse.
Hawke undoes the gambeson ties that Fenris had struggled so desperately to knot, and one by one the pauldrons fall to the ground; the couters, one by one, fall with a clang; the first vambrace falls and Hawke winces.
"Lovely bruising you have there," he says, hand hovering briefly over the underside of Fenris's forearm, where the branches of his markings lace into a wine-colored stain.
"Yes, I recently had a scrape with a Knight-Templar."
Hawke chokes on a laugh—Had you?—and moves on to the cuirass's second strap, and a moment later, Fenris is shrugging out of it.
Each of them work at a tie on the ceremonial skirt and mail skirt, that falls, and while Hawke removes the greaves, Fenris pulls the chainmail shirt off over his head, unfastens the straps of the bloodstained gambeson and slips that off. Beneath this, all he has is a leather jerkin, leggings, and the belt that carries his coin, herbs and other belongings, which he has tied high around his ribcage, where it fit in the vast cavern of Jon Kettlemaker's chestpiece. He had to leave the armor he'd been using behind, he'll have to find a way to buy a new set once he's lost the White Falcons.
Fenris fastens his belt at his waist and Hawke snickers.
He's kneeling at Fenris's feet, holding the sabatons that had been fastened around his ankles. Fenris asks what he finds so amusing this time.
"You couldn't bring yourself to put on boots?"
"None came with the suit. It's a wonder no one noticed my heels flashing as I walked."
Hawke grins. Fenris schools his face into a scowl.
"I haven't squired for anyone since my father retired to the farm. Thank you for the opportunity," he says, standing.
No one has "squired" for Fenris in well over two years. Though that was a process not quite so involved: when he was a slave, he was as much a showpiece as a bodyguard, and armoring too much of him would have defeated his purpose.
So with the sky, in the east over the rocky hills, darkening to the same color as his arm and the same color as the seas he's crossed to escape Tevinter, Fenris's thoughts drift to Danarius again, to the past again, as they inevitably do. For the third time, he considers the man before him. He's young, a mage, soon to flee his home, and should not be helping him, but the time is running out for Hawke to betray him and Hawke seems to be in no rush. He is taking an apple out of his pocket and saying, You might as well take this, I don't even like them, and he isn't grabbing Fenris and pressing it into his hand, like he grabbed him when he shook Fenris's hand: he holds his arm out, nonchalantly gazing off at something a thousand yards away, waiting for Fenris to take it, or not.
Fenris takes the apple.
"Why are you doing this?" Fenris asks him. He is genuinely curious.
"Freedom's a worthy venture. If you can make it to the Brecilian Forest, they say there are elves there who might help you.'
The Dalish. Fenris would rather plead sanctuary at the Chantry door.
He nods. "That's where I'll go." If Hawke tells anyone where Fenris is going, he'll be throwing them off his trail. "This will mean trouble for you."
"What's a little more? I'll be out of here by sundown, anyway." He looks up at the sky, which is fading from purple to cool blue. "Sunrise, that is. Go north."
"Obviously."
"Poor time for romance anyway," Hawke says, suddenly. His hands are in his pockets and he's avoiding Fenris's eyes, looking at the pieces of armor glittering in the grass instead. "Now, with the darkspawn horde encroaching and you under immediate threat of death or capture. Maybe we'll meet again when it's more convenient."
"I doubt it," Fenris says, and this is the last thing he says to Hawke until he meets him again in the Kirkwall alienage almost two years later. And Hawke will never let him forget it.