- What His Lyrium Whispered
Fenris x F!Hawke
Warnings: Violence
Read it AO3! https://archiveofourown.org/works/43572516
Fenris feels like the whole world is coming down on him.
Reality tears at the seams like wet paper and the ugly stone walls of the Viscount’s Keep feel ready to topple like falling trees. None of this feels real; yet the blood hammering in his head tells him otherwise. The panic gutting his stomach like a blade making him near manic.
He’s used to spiralling internally. Maintaining the stoic safe zone for others to rely on when the situation becomes dangerous. But in this moment, watching as Hawke struggles for air against the ironclad grip of the Arishok’s hand clenched around her throat, he can’t maintain this facade any longer.
He can see the cracks deepening in the stone pillar she’s been thrust against. Used like an object - he’s shocked her damn spine hadn’t snapped. Or perhaps it had, there was no way for Fenris to know, to check on her. He steps one foot in this arena, the whole room will descend upon him like wolves.
He can feel their eyes on his back, dangling along his spine like spider legs. The other Qunari stand like watchful statues all around them unmoved by the torture. Yet he feels as though they are just waiting for him to move. To finally snap. At this rate, Fenris fears they will get what they want…
“Elf…”
The twisting expressions tearing apart Hawke’s face were enough to make him frenzy. That startled look of realisation - that there’s no way she’s getting out of this one - strikes at his heart as surely as a blade. He wants desperately to rush in, to unleash his fury on the Arishok. Make him regret ever laying a hand on her. But he knows that won’t save her…
The flash of memory over their last words; their last moment alone - and he’d left. Left her naked and alone in cold bed sheets as he stormed into the night. Pushed each and every attempt she’d made to pull him back, to have them talk about this. He left things unsaid, unanswered, and unsatisfied. Foolishly thinking there’d be time, another moment to explain, a distant future where he could be enough and ready.
And now he watches the colour drain from her face, her eyes bulging with horror, mouth twisting in agony. She’s everything to his world, to his heart, and he’s watching her die slowly right before him and everyone else she loves.
“Fenris!”
Varric. Fenris tears his gaze from the horror and across his shoulder. His teeth ache with how tight his jaw is, eyeing the dwarf who’s suddenly got a firm grip on his wrist.
“You can’t,” He’s never heard Varric beg. And frankly Fenris never wishes to hear it again. It reminds him how fucked everything is that the dwarf can’t find a reason to smile. That he too has lost hope that Hawke will have something up her sleeve this time…
Fenris looks down, startled as he realises. Despite intending to remain behind the line. He’s now standing on it. Teetering dangerously close to crossing it. Hearing movement, he sees the Qunari around them - their hands suddenly gripping the spears on their backs. Eyes daring him to step further.
Qunlat reaches his ears then, hot and spitting. He watches as the Arishok’s face pulls into pure rage as his already impossibly forceful grip winds all the tighter around Hawke’s throat. To the point Fenris sees his grey knuckles burn white. Lifting her up only to slam her back into the column, as if testing if she was still kicking. Her body thudded on impact horribly. He had taken all his outrage on her - holding her up as the city he had been stranded in. The city he had tolerated like a flesh-eating parasite gnawing away at him. His anguish cut deep into her skin in angry red lines dripping down and down…
He’d beaten her bloody, but his own body ran red with the myriad of cuts and gashes inflicted by the quickness of Hawke’s sword. But in the end…it wasn’t enough.
“No, no, no…” Isabela is the next one to be forcefully pulled back by Varric. Only just catching her, Varric lets Fenris go as he needed both hands to force her back.
“He’s going to fucking kill her!” Isabela cries out, struggling in Varric’s grip.
“Rivaini no!”
“Look at her! Look!” Her voice rings throughout the hall, pulling even the Arishok’s attention briefly. Who regards Isabela with nothing. Face stoic and unreadable, hardened like he was sculpted from stone. If he felt any remorse for giving Hawke such an agonising end, he didn’t show it. Deep down however, Fenris wondered if he felt enlightened by the thief’s reaction. Emboldened by his idea of swift punishment for stealing the Tome of Koslun.
Between Isabela’s frantic shouting, the mingled outcry of onlookers, and the rest of Hawke’s group looking on in pure horror. Fenris feels his sanity slipping.
It’s only when Hawke uses what little strength she has to place her hand on the Arishok’s arm - as if that would stop him - that finally breaks him.
And in the end, when her near lifeless gaze reaches his, and she still somehow fucking smiles, as if to reassure him. He looks away.
He can’t watch her die like this. And it makes him feel sick. The woman he had loved and abandoned only two days ago. The woman who had given him a place to call home, who made him feel seen, wanted, heard, and who he left like it was nothing. The woman whose affections he had never deserved since day one…and he couldn’t even give her the satisfaction of looking back at her in her final moments.
His heart is tearing apart, splitting open like a gushing wound. He’ll bleed out on the floor, and walk out of this Keep a husk of his former self. Suddenly he’s that elf in the dense fog of Seheron. The blood of comrades sticky on his skin, unable to even offer the respect of gazing upon the faces of the friends he had just decimated upon demand.
“Vat!”
A roaring gush, like the opening maws of a dragon, cracks the room apart.
The Arishok suddenly stumbles back. Clawing at his wrist wildly - the distinct smell of burning flesh filling Fenris’s nose - as Hawke’s body slumps against the ground.
The Arishok mumbles curses in Qunlat - phrases Fenris can’t begin to decipher amidst the groans and hisses as he holds his wrist. Smoke trailing from a patch of pink skin. Fenris thinks he’s missed something, brain lagging from the hysteria of losing Hawke. Until…
Hawke moves, slowly rising to her knees - the skin of her palms rippled from burns as smokey tendrils wave. As a small glow emits around Hawke’s form, Fenris spots that her fingers are moving. Tracing strange shapes…the same way that Anders does when he’s working in the clinic in Darktown…
Fenris stops breathing as she stands - her wounds healed but still red raw - spitting out a chunk of blood as she stares down the Arishok. Her face pulled into pure manic ecstasy as she extended her arms outwards - as if to taunt him.
“Y-You…are Saarebaas?” The Arishok picks his axes from the ground. Eyeing Hawke with disdain.
“Yes,” She breathed, like she had finally released a breath she’d been holding for a long time.
She’s a terrifying sight. Her palms are scarred; the skin rippling from the fire. Her nose bridge split open like her face was torn in half as blood spills across her nose and down to her jaw. Clothes sopping wet from her wounds. Yet she smiles - teeth blood red - like a demon descended from the Fade…
Fenris feels cold suddenly. Witnessing the woman he had fought beside for three years, the woman he had laughed with and talked to until the early hours of the morning. The woman he loved and laid with - now practically exuding magic. In this moment, she was magic. Untamed and wild; no staff to shape and conjure the fade into controllable elements, but pouring her determination to survive into reality like a crashing wave.
All this time he thought her to be a warrior like him. Built and locked into the waking world - relying on the physical to maintain strength and skill. But no, she was born to expel elements beyond the common man’s understanding. Born to manipulate and take. All this time when she touched him, his lyrium would thrum as if attuned to something. He thought it resonated with his love for her, his lyrium veins quivering for all the feelings he harboured. They were one after all.
But no. They were warning him. Whispering that magic was near the entire time.
“You lie,” The Arishok spits on the ground.“You dare engage in a duel with me, Sarebaas?!”
“Is that you forfeiting?” Hawke spits out more blood. “Does the Arishok claim defeat against a Southern mage?”
When she speaks, Fenris notes the other Qunari sharing glances with each other. The Arishok too seems to clock this, looking all around him. Fenris knows he did not view Hawke as a woman, to engage in a duel with one is unheard of for the Qunari. But he still respected her. With this revelation…Hawke has well and truly removed any ounce of humanity he might have once held for her….
He fears that. Amidst the anger he feels over her sick lies, he fears what he’ll do now.
The Arishok spins his axe in hand, rolling his boulder-like shoulder.
“No,”
Hawke’s face is firm, as if she had wished for nothing more. Nodding once in silent confirmation. She turns to her companions, but distinctively avoids him.
“Anders, your staff,” She says.
Fenris watches Anders, who freezes for a moment in shock, before slowly walking over to Hawke. He grips his staff firmly even as she tries to take it. And Fenris feels his blood boil as they exchange words, Anders taking hold of her shoulder and squeezing it.
Then he turns away. And it feels like he too avoids looking at him as Hawke slams the bottom of the staff into the ground.
She holds it with confidence. The staff like a third arm, as she settles into a battle stance…..
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