(no subject)

WHO: Fenris and Mahallain Lavellan
WHERE: Skyhold
WHEN: Post-Here Lies the Abyss
WARNINGS: Here Lies the Abyss spoilers, spoilers for Fenris' plot in DA2.
NOTES: Default worldstate except that Hawke romanced Fenris.

It had been foolish to expect anything from a trip to Skyhold.

Fenris had received Varric's letter, telling him that Hawke had gone, and it wasn't as though Varric had glossed over the details. But he'd wanted to know more, to do more. To hear from Varric's own mouth what had happened, so far as the dwarf can be believed.

It had been bad enough Hawke had left without giving him the chance to come too, that there had been such grave dangers involved that Fenris had not been there for. But exiling the Grey Wardens from Orlais and going to Weisshaupt to help the order rebuild? He'd had to know more, why, things that couldn't be said in a letter. So he'd made Skyhold a stop on his way to track the movements of yet more Tevinter slavers and the political madmen they followed. He'd cornered Varric and he'd asked -- demanded -- the dwarf tell him more. The story had made him increasingly angry, frustrated, and in the end, he'd stormed out with a bitter Tevene curse.

Already, Fenris feels bad for his harshness towards his friend, but he trusts the dwarf will understand if he does not apologize until later. For now, he paces the grass courtyards of the Skyhold keep, muttering to himself.

Why did Hawke have to go the one place he can't follow? Weisshaupt is so close to Tevinter it may as well be in the Imperium. Danarius may be dead, but an escaped slave will not be safe anywhere so close to the Imperium, Danarius, Hadriana, or no.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She's still pissed off about the Wardens. This is not a good thing. She knows it isn't a good thing, but it's fuel to the burning fire deep in her belly and mind and soul and she doesn't know what to do with it. For all that, today isn't so bad; blowing shit up as part of her practice does help a girl's anger issues. Today isn't so bad, so in a way that makes her more primed than normal to notice the man arguing with Varric. Mahallain does, and doesn't want to deal with a potential situation, a potential target.

She's still who she always is, though. Her clan is gone but she's a protector of it, of whatever new clan this Inquisition is turning into, and Varric's been by her side since the start. She's... curious.

So the woman walks over to the angry, pacing man, eyes flick from relevant point to relevant point. Armed with armour (Tevinter-ish, she thinks: matches the swearing), pointed ears, elven style pants and feet, but again and again her eyes are drawn to the silvery tattoos running down his arms and throat like veins.

"Is there something I could help you with?" Mahallain asks, cocking her head slightly in curiousity. She knows the gesture can make her look like a wide-eyed halla of a girl or slightly unnerving, depending on the other person's prejudices and how they react to her vallaslin. She's curious as to how he'll react, if at all.

Edited 2017-04-19 10:40 (UTC)

"Fasta vass!"

Fenris, at the far point of his pacing, clenches one fist as best he can under the gauntlet. He's not, truly, angry at Varric. The dwarf had no reason to stop Hawke, and even if he had, there had never been any way to sway Hawke from a decision once it was made. But why did he have to go to Weisshaupt? Fenris had killed his master, killed the slavers Danarius had sent after him, even killed Hadriana, but he knows Minrathous well enough to know that it is still a dangerous place for him, and there's no getting to Weisshaupt without passing far too close to Tevinter.

In Tevinter, he's still a slave. Someone would have their right to him and the rest of Danarius' property, and he's never cared much about that before, because he never wanted to go back to Tevinter. He still doesn't, but he'd made promises to Hawke: I remain at your side.

He doesn't know how to deal with this, and he's just as much at a loss as he had been before he'd spoken to Varric. Hawke had been his purpose, since Danarius' death. Now, he finds himself adrift and helplessly so.

He turns, sharply, at the sound of the voice, but before he can snarl out a response, he sees that he's been approached by another elf, not some human determined to see him out of where he doesn't belong. Dalish, to judge by the blood-markings on her face and the curious way she keeps looking to his arms, his throat, back to his arms, her eyes clearly tracing the lyrium markings gashed across his skin.

"Oh."

He straightens, a little. Fenris is tall and strong for an elf, though that makes him only average opposite a human, but he believes that this is an elf to whom he should show at least a little respect. For Varric's sake, or perhaps for Andraste's.

"I did not intend to disturb you. I came to see a friend."

"So I heard." It's said peaceably enough, just little spiced with wryness, but Mahallain's dark eyes are still watchful. If anyone around here actually knows halla, they wouldn't find her colouration and her appearance so winesome: halla will charge you if they get nervous. She's not like that. She watches, conserves her energy.

And, apparently, reaches out. Metaphors are rarely perfect outside poetry. Besides, he's tall for an elf man, armed and armoured, but she's taller than most Dalish women herself, her body strong from a lifetime of movement, hunting, working, fighting. Not to mention the key to reality embedded in her palm.

He's also friend of Varric's. That counts for a lot.

"If it's about the misadventures of Hawke... I might be able to help."

Might, may. Mahallain has a guess as to who this is, though she knows enough from her own experience to be uncomfortable when perfect strangers know her name and something of her exploits. And she does know Varric: how close his book is to the actual Fenris, the man standing in front of her, is probably not very close at all.

Edited 2017-04-20 12:50 (UTC)

Fenris lets out a long, deep breath.

"Yes," he says. "I understand that you might."

Fenris had never been particularly accustomed to socializing, not pointlessly, though he'd learned to do so, a little, with the friends he'd made thanks to Hawke. His lover, of course, can hold him for hours at a time, though he's not moved in to the Amell estate, and makes no plans to do so. But over the weeks and months he'd spent traveling Ferelden, he'd fallen back into his old ways, speaking to few, and only when it was entirely necessary. Except, of course, to taunt his foes before he tore their corrupted hearts.

"I ... apologize. I am Fenris. And you are the one they call the Herald of Andraste."

Tales of her have traveled across all of Thedas. She has taken a place in the war between the mages and the rogue templars, and has fought against the demon-spewing holes in reality that must have been torn by foul magic. As magic tears the world apart, an elf appears to be one of few standing against that madness.

Yes, he owes her some respect, whether she is sent by Andraste or not.

"They do call me that. I prefer Lavellan." Still with that peaceable tone of voice, because she's getting better at hiding her disquiet over the title. There's nothing she can do about it now. She won't embrace it, but she's starting to... let it slide.

Inquisitor she has earned, she doesn't mind Inquisitor, but a friend of Varric's can skip that. She's not one to stand on formality, except when she needs to for respect. With this man, protocol won't do it, she thinks. Words and actions will.

(Besides, she's the only one she knows of that still carries Lavellan in her name. She doesn't... No, it can't die out. It can't be silenced and forgotten.)

"What would you like to know?"