#hawke coming back as well in inquisitor was a nice tie in and made returning players feel like their past choices and love interests | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pikapeppa · 5 years

Text

Fenris/f!Hawke and the Inquisition: Mother

Chapter 42 of Lovers In A Dangerous Time (i.e. Fenris the Inquisitor) is up on AO3! In which Morrigan confronts her mother in the Fade, with Fenris and Hawke along for the ride.

Read on AO3 instead. ~8300 words.

********************

Fenris went through the eluvian before Hawke. He immediately realized where they were, and his heart jammed itself into his throat.

He turned back to the eluvian as Hawke was stepping through it. Before she had a chance to open her mouth, he grasped her arm.

“Go back,” he urged, but it was too late. Her face had gone pale, and her eyes were huge as she took in their surreal and unpleasant surroundings.

“Andraste’s fucking tits,” she breathed. “We’re in the Fade?”

Distress was creeping across her face like a shadow. He cradled her cheek in his palm. “Go back,” he told her. “There’s no need for you to suffer this again.”

“Are you kidding?” she said. She pulled his hand away from her face and squeezed it. “I’m not leaving you here alone. Not a fucking chance. Let’s just find Morrigan and get out of here as fast as we can. I mean, not that I wouldn’t love to stay in the Fade since it’s so nice and cheerful here, but I forgot to pack a picnic basket.”

She was smiling and her tone was light, and she was so obviously upset that it made his heart ache. “Hawke–”

She cut him off. “How the fuck do you suppose this happened, anyway?” she said. “I thought the eluvian was supposed to lead to the crossroads, not right into the Fade. Isn’t this, you know, a bad thing?” She started walking along the cracked dirt pathway, and Fenris had no choice but to follow her.

“It got us from the Temple of Mythal directly back to Skyhold, as well,” Fenris reminded her.

“That’s true,” she mused. She stepped gingerly over a tidy pile of gilded skulls, then shot Fenris a curious look. “So that’s three different places that Morrigan’s eluvian has led to. Do you think her eluvian could take us anywhere?”

Fenris frowned. “I wonder,” he said slowly. “But the way Morrigan spoke of the crossroads… She made it sound like specific eluvians led to specific locations.” Then he waved his hand dismissively. “We’ll consider it later. We should focus on finding Morrigan now.”

“True,” Hawke said. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Morrigan!” she yelled.

Her voice didn’t echo as one would expect; instead, it fell flat and muffled as though they were in a padded room. All the same, Fenris grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away from her mouth. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

“Calling for her! What else?” Hawke said in surprise. “If she knows we’re here, maybe we can organize ourselves and search for Kieran more systematically.” She grimaced at the hazy and ominous landscape. “If there is such thing as being systematic in the Fade.”

“We have to be quiet,” Fenris insisted. “We don’t want undue attention. Look.” He jerked his chin to the left, where a handful of wraiths were drifting aimlessly around an enormous and ancient-looking Avvar statue.

Hawke looked, then tilted her head chidingly at Fenris. “Those are just wraiths like the ones in Old Crestwood. They won’t hurt us.”

“That doesn’t mean I want their attention,” Fenris retorted. “Now come. We must find Morrigan. Quietly.” He took her hand, and together they trotted through the misty and indistinct landscape of the Fade.

Hawke chattered quietly as they hurried past the omnipresent statues and eerie puddles and piles of candles. “So. Dorian going back to Tevinter, hm? That’s wonderful for him! A terrible hazard to his health, mind you, what with the poison and the assassins and the abusive father. But if anyone can navigate all of that and come out all the more handsome, it’s our Dorian.”

“It is a risky course,” Fenris said distractedly. “But he’s certain of what he wants.”

“So you think it’s a good idea for him to go back?” Hawke said.

Fenris shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think. He is his own man. I am not his father to judge what he does or doesn’t do.”

She snickered. “I should hope not, since you’re only a few years older than him. That would just be weird.”

Fenris grunted an acknowledgement, and they were silent for a moment before Hawke spoke again. “So… if I wanted to tie him to that nice squishy armchair in the library and not let him leave, I take it you wouldn’t be helping me?”

Fenris gave her a small chiding smile. “Not this time, Hawke,” he said gently. “You are on your own with that plan.”

She chuckled, then sighed. “What’s so great about Tevinter that he wants to go back? Everything you’ve ever said about that place is awful. Everything he’s ever said is awful.”

Fenris ran a hand through his hair. “Our lives in Tevinter were very different,” he said slowly. “I was not a ‘person of Tevinter’. I was not a citizen. I was… chattel. Valuable chattel, but chattel nonetheless.”

Hawke scowled at this, but Fenris wasn’t finished. “Dorian, on the other hand, is a powerful altus from a noble family. He is a citizen of Tevinter in every sense of the word. For better or worse, the Imperium is his home.”

Hawke’s expression softened. “And it was never yours.”

“Absolutely not,” Fenris said quietly. “I… I have never truly had a place that I could call a home.” He gave her a rueful look. “You and I never had time to build that for ourselves.”

“Kirkwall was home for a while,” she suggested.

Fenris nodded ambivalently. Kirkwall was admittedly welcoming compared to everywhere else that Fenris had been during his years on the run, but he’d spent so much of his time in Kirkwall being constantly on guard that he hadn’t quite gotten around to feeling that it was really home. He might have squatted spitefully in Danarius’s mansion for years, but it had always remained just that: Danarius’s mansion, and never a home. Hawke’s house had been a refuge, first of friendship and then of love, but Fenris had never quite allowed himself to call it his home, not wanting Hawke to feel like he was dependent on her.

“I know what you mean, though,” she said, almost as though she knew his thoughts. “We never did buy that little house together that we wanted, did we?”

He looked at her. “We didn’t, no,” he said. He thought back to the conversation they’d had a few months ago in Crestwood, when they talked about finding a house on a Rivaini beach somewhere once Corypheus was dead. He wondered if she remembered it.

He wondered if it would be possible someday.

She gazed at him tenderly for a moment, then smiled and gently pinched his chin. “Well, you know what they say. Home is where the heart is.”

“I know no greater truth, Hawke,” he said softly.

And perhaps this, he realized, was how he and Dorian were similar: they would both risk their lives for the wellbeing of their homes. Fenris’s home just happened to be a person rather than a country.

Hawke’s smile was wide and warm. She stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Come on, handsome. Let’s find ourselves a beautiful witch.”

They walked through the Fade in silence for a time – how long exactly, Fenris wasn’t sure – but it was long enough that he began to feel antsy about the repetitious and unnerving landscape that surrounded them.

“Where in the Void is that blasted witch?” he said impatiently. “We should have caught up to her by now. She barely had a few minutes’ head-start.”

Hawke shrugged. “Time and distance work differently here, remember? And remember what Solas said.” She put on a mocking deep voice. “‘The more you try and force your way through the Fade, the less successful you’ll be’. Or something along those lines. We have to just… go with the flow. See what happens.” She gestured vaguely at the craggy and mist-laced rocks that loomed to their left.

Fenris looked at her curiously. “How are you this calm?” he said. Then he winced slightly. That had come out sounding more insensitive than he’d intended.

She raised her eyebrows. “Should I not be?”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said hastily. “I’m glad you’re… taking this in stride.” Truthfully, he was thinking of Carver. Being in the Fade sent a creeping ripple of disquiet down the back of Fenris’s neck, and he hadn’t even lost a family member here. He couldn’t imagine how difficult this must be for Hawke.

Her smile faltered for a telltale second. “Well, so are you,” she said cheerfully. “What else can we do, right? It’s not like we can ask for directions.” She raised her eyebrows. “Actually… I suppose we could try. Shall I ask the next wraith we see?”

She was deflecting, thereby confirming Fenris’s suspicions. He ran a comforting hand along her back. “I would rather not,” he said dryly. “But if you think it would help…”

She smiled more widely at him, then tugged him toward a wraith that was hovering around a macabre threesome of hanging skeletons. “Hello!” she said brightly. “I hate to disturb your, er… drifting, but I don’t suppose you’ve seen a drop-dead gorgeous brunette passing through? Golden eyes, wine-coloured lips, scantily clad…”

She trailed off, and Fenris bit the inside of his cheek. The wraith was drifting away from Hawke without a word.

“All right then,” Hawke said lamely. “Good, er, good talking to you.” She grimaced at Fenris and lowered her voice. “Was I terribly rude?”

“Ask Solas about spirit manners upon our return to Skyhold,” Fenris drawled. “For now, let’s continue to–”

“There she is!” Hawke exclaimed, and she pointed.

Fenris whipped around, and his shoulders dropped in relief. Morrigan was walking around in a frantic but haphazard circle about fifteen metres away.

“Morrigan,” he barked.

She looked up briefly at the sound of his voice, then waved him off. “Go back!” she called, and she started trotting away.

Fenris grabbed Hawke’s hand and began running toward her. As they drew level with her, Fenris looked at her in surprise; her face was tight with uncharacteristic panic.

“No sign of Kieran yet, then?” Hawke asked.

Morrigan shook her head. “No,” she said tensely. “I cannot tell where he has gone.”

Hawke’s eyebrows rose in sympathy. “It’s all right, Morrigan, we’ll–”

“Why did Kieran do this?” Morrigan suddenly burst out. “How could he do this? To direct the eluvian here would require immense power.” She took a deep, shaky breath and turned away from Fenris and Hawke. “If he is lost to me now, after all I have sacrificed…”

Fenris narrowed his eyes. “You never mentioned that Kieran was a mage. And a powerful one at that.”

“Of course that is what would concern you right now,” Morrigan snapped. “If you must know, Kieran is not, in fact, a mage.” She exhaled sharply. “But I do not understand what would lead him to come here. Why would he run from me?”

Her voice was strained with stress, and Fenris watched her with growing wariness. Morrigan was one of the most infuriatingly cool and composed people Fenris had ever met. Seeing her lose her composure was almost as unnerving as the Fade itself.

She was rubbing her sternum compulsively. “Whatever happens to him now, ‘tis my doing. I sent him on his path,” she lamented.

Fenris frowned in confusion. What did she mean by that?

Then she looked directly at Fenris. “Please help me look, Inquisitor. Just a little longer.”

He blinked in bemusement at the simple humility of her request. “Er, yes,” he said. “We’ll… we’ll find Kieran.”

“That’s right,” Hawke said firmly. She reached for Morrigan’s arm, then seemed to think better of it and tucked her hands behind her back. “Don’t panic, all right? We’ll find him.”

Morrigan took another deep breath and nodded, and the three of them continued in a wandering path through the Fade. Morrigan was silent as they strode along, and Fenris wasn’t inclined to break that silence; he wanted some time with his thoughts.

So Morrigan’s son harboured some ‘immense power’, but he wasn’t a mage. So what was he, exactly? Was this immense power related to why was he so strange, with his oddly anachronistic way of speaking and his unnerving comments that reminded Fenris of Cole at times?

But Kieran didn’t always speak in cryptic riddles. At times he behaved just like a normal child, running around with Toby and Hawke in the yard–

Suddenly Fenris realized what was going on. He shot Morrigan a sharp look. “Kieran is possessed,” he said bluntly.

Hawke’s eyes went wide, but Morrigan only glanced at him. “Excuse me?” she said distractedly.

“Your son is possessed,” Fenris accused. “That is why he’s strange – why he was able to open the eluvian. He’s possessed by a powerful demon, isn’t he?”

Hawke let out a little laugh and patted his arm. “Fenris, maybe now is not the time…”

But Morrigan answered him. “My son is not being controlled by some malevolent spirit, if that is what you are suggesting,” she said snidely. “What Kieran possesses is something far more valuable. He holds the soul of an Old God.”

Fenris’s stomach jolted in shock. That was not the answer he had expected.

Hawke replied for both of them. “Huh?” she said.

Morrigan nodded. Her eyes continued to move restlessly across the strange and hazy landscape as she spoke. “Taken from the Archdemon at the final battle of the Fifth Blight, yes,” she said.

Fenris gaped at her in utter disbelief. Once again, Hawke spoke in his place. “How…?”

Morrigan glanced at her. “I dare not speak of the ritual, Champion. Your husband would no doubt lock me away if he knew.”

Her tone was laced with a hint of her usual arrogance, and Fenris narrowed his eyes. “You forced the soul of an archdemon into an unborn child?” he demanded.

Morrigan looked at him, then looked away and continued to scan their surroundings. “He has never known anything else. The Old God soul was with him from the moment he was conceived.”

“How could you do that?” Fenris snapped. “Force your child to bear the soul of an archdemon before he had the will to refuse it?”

“I told you at the Temple,” Morrigan said in a hard voice. “The magic of old must be preserved, no matter how feared.”

A fresh rush of anger filled Fenris’s chest, and he took a deep breath. Before he could speak, however, Hawke clapped her hands once. “All right!” she said cheerfully. “Fascinating as this chat has been, let’s stay on course, yes? We’ve got a ten-year-old to rescue from a boring life of no one but wraiths for company.”

Morrigan’s scowl immediately melted back into anxiety, and she nodded once before picking up her pace. Once Morrigan was slightly ahead of them, Hawke turned to him. “Fenris–”

“Her actions are deplorable,” he hissed. “Forcing a blight-infested… life-force onto her own child? Is that the only reason she wants to find him? To regain the power that’s trapped in his unwitting body?”

“Look, what’s done is done,” Hawke said firmly. “And if we’re thinking about Kieran’s wellbeing here, arguing with Morrigan isn’t going to help us to get him out of here.”

Fenris clenched his jaw and didn’t reply. Hawke was right, of course; arguing with Morrigan wasn’t going to undo any evils she’d committed ten years ago. Not that she should be freed from any culpability she’d earned, but they had more pressing matters right now – namely the safety of her son.

Hawke was gazing at him pleadingly, and an uncomfortable feeling of shame diluted his anger. He hadn’t meant to start an argument when a child’s life was at stake. But if that child bore such an immense power – one that Morrigan and perhaps even Kieran didn’t understand…

Fenris sighed. “Come,” he said tiredly, and he and Hawke hurried along in Morrigan’s wake.

The whole situation was fraught with danger – the exact sort of danger that the Circle was intended to mitigate. But Morrigan had raised Kieran thus far without any help or Chantry control, and he was…

Yes, Kieran was odd. But he was perfectly polite and well-behaved. And before this incident, Fenris would never have suspected that Kieran harboured any magical abilities at all.

But even Morrigan didn’t know he could channel this kind of magical power, Fenris thought. And that meant that Kieran’s power – or the Old God’s power, really – was a complete unknown, even to his own arrogant know-it-all of a mother–

“There he is!” Morrigan cried.

Fenris looked up, then did a double-take. Kieran was standing in a small clearing among the plethora of statues and craggy dolmens, but he wasn’t alone.

Fenris’s heart seized with shock and alarm. There was a formidably-dressed woman kneeling in front of Kieran – one that Fenris and Hawke had met before, and whom Morrigan knew well.

“No,” Morrigan said faintly. She sounded as though she’d been punched in the belly. “That’s… no. It can’t be.” She bolted off toward her son, and Fenris and Hawke raced after her.

Kieran looked up at their approach. “Mother!” he said joyfully. He smiled at Morrigan and closed his fist, extinguishing the blinding white-blue light of magic that was glowing in his palm.

The formidably-dressed woman rose slowly to her feet and smirked. “Well well,” she said. “Isn’t this a surprise.” Her cool yellow gaze drifted from Morrigan to Fenris, and then to Hawke.

“The Champion of Kirkwall,” she mused. Her eyes shifted back to Fenris, and her smile widened. “And a Herald indeed: shouting to the heavens, a harbinger of a new age.” She laughed: a rich, knowing sound that sent a shiver down Fenris’s spine. “The twists of fate have not been kind to you, have they now?”

Fenris narrowed his eyes. He may have forgotten Flemeth’s exact words to Hawke when they’d first met all those years ago, but the ominous nature of her interest in Hawke still lingered in his mind.

Hawke folded her arms. “Hello, Flemeth. It’s been a while, how are the dragon’s wings, blah blah and so on. We’d love to catch up over a cup of tea, but it looks like you’ve taken someone who wasn’t yours to take.” She gave Kieran a pointed glance and lifted her chin in challenge.

“Nonsense,” Flemeth replied. “He came to see his grandmother, like a good lad. I’m told sense often skips a generation.” She shot Morrigan a supercilious look.

Morrigan took an aggressive step forward. “Kieran is not your grandson. Let him go!”

Flemeth tilted her head chidingly. “As if I were holding the boy hostage.” She glanced conspiratorially at Fenris. “She’s always been ungrateful, you see.”

“Ungrateful?” Morrigan shrieked.

Fenris recoiled slightly. He’d never seen Morrigan so enraged.

Morrigan took another step toward her mother and pointed at her accusingly. “I know how you plan to extend your life, wicked crone,” she spat. “You will not have me, and you will not have my son!” She lifted her palms, and a cloud of violent green magic began to build around her hands.

“That’s quite enough,” Flemeth said briskly. “You’ll endanger the boy.” Her eyes flashed a brilliant white-blue – the same shade of white-blue, in fact, that had illuminated Kieran’s palm just a moment ago. She extended her hand toward Morrigan, and Morrigan’s magical attack abruptly disappeared.

Morrigan stumbled back and gazed at her inert palms with wide and fearful eyes. “What have you done to me?” she demanded.

“I have done nothing,” Flemeth said. “You drank from the Well of your own volition.”

Fenris blinked. Wait. Drank from the Well? Flemeth knew Morrigan had drunk from the Well? But how…?

Morrigan exhaled in disbelief. “You… are Mythal,” she breathed.

Fenris gave Flemeth a sharp look. The corners of Flemeth’s lips were curled in the smallest of smirks.

An odd feeling of surreality filled Fenris’s ears, and Hawke exhaled loudly. “Well, shit,” she said blankly. “That’s, er… unexpected.”

Flemeth’s smirk widened. “You of all people should expect the unexpected by now.” She patted Kieran’s shoulder, and Kieran gave her a quick smile before running to Morrigan.

Morrigan fell to her knees and swept Kieran into her arms. Fenris, meanwhile, was still staring at Flemeth with a ringing sense of dull disbelief. Flemeth was Mythal, all this time? Back on Sundermount when Merrill had done her Dalish ritual on that cursed amulet, the being she’d set free was… not a witch, or a fragment of a witch, but… but an ancient elven goddess?

It couldn’t be. It was too… fantastical.

“You can’t be Mythal,” Fenris said, but he could hear the uncertainty in his own voice.

She quirked an eyebrow. “Explain to me, dear boy, why I cannot be what I am.”

“Where is your proof?” Fenris said. But as soon as the words left his mouth, something strange that Solas had once said returned to his mind: no real god need prove himself. Anyone who tries is mad or lying.

Flemeth’s smiled broadened, and Fenris frowned. Then Kieran spoke. “I’m sorry, Mother. I heard her calling to me. She said now was the time.” He pulled away from Morrigan’s tight embrace and returned to Flemeth’s side.

Morrigan slowly rose to her feet. “I do not understand,” she said in a trembling voice.

Flemeth lifted her chin haughtily. “Once I was but a woman, crying out in the lonely darkness for justice. And she came to me, a whisper of an ancient being, and she granted me all I wanted and more. I have carried Mythal through the ages ever since, seeking a justice denied to her.”

“So… hang on a minute,” Hawke said. “You’re not actually Mythal, but you’re carrying her in your body?”

“She is a part of me, no more separate than your heart from your chest,” Flemeth replied.

Hawke raised her eyebrows, and Fenris knew exactly what she was thinking: Flemeth’s description was exactly how Anders had described his… arrangement with Justice.

Fenris folded his arms. “How do you know that the ancient being with whom you share yourself is a goddess and not a demon?”

Flemeth smiled at him. “Such a curious lad. Some things do not change, I see.” She looked at Morrigan. “You hear the voices of the Well, girl. What do they say?”

Morrigan took a deep breath, then closed her eyes. A moment later, she opened them, and her lemon-coloured irises flickered for a moment before she replied. “They… they say you speak the truth,” she whispered.

Flemeth smiled, then began to pace in a slow and leisurely manner. “But what was Mythal? A legend given name and called god, or something more? Truth is not the end, but a beginning.”

Fenris frowned more deeply. So it was still possible that the being inside of Flemeth was a spirit – just a powerful spirit that was known as a goddess back in ancient Arlathan.

“You follow her whims?” Morrigan asked her mother. “Not knowing what she truly is, still you step along the path she commands?”

Flemeth gave Morrigan a condescending look. “You seek to preserve the powers that were, but to what end? It is because I taught you, girl. Because things happened that were never meant to happen.” She took a step closer to Morrigan, and Fenris took an instinctive step in front of Hawke; Flemeth’s usual smug expression was starting to twist with anger.

“Mythal was betrayed, as I was betrayed – as the world was betrayed,” she proclaimed. “Mythal clawed and crawled her way through the ages to me, and I will see her avenged!”

Flemeth’s furious voice rang through the Fade. Despite his alarm, Fenris couldn’t help but notice this was the first time that any sound echoed the way it should in this dismal place.

Then Flemeth sighed. “Alas,” she said quietly. “So long as the music plays, we dance.”

Fenris continued to eye her mistrustfully. No matter what Flemeth and Morrigan said, Flemeth’s behaviour was still striking him as highly reminiscent of Anders, right down to the glittering white-blue of her eyes when she’d quashed Morrigan’s magical attack.

Hawke cleared her throat. “So what business brings you here, Flemeth?” she said casually. “Or should we call you Mythal?” Then she straightened and snapped her fingers. “Flemythal! Oh, that’s a perfect portmanteau. Can we call you Flemythal?”

Fenris interrupted her. “Morrigan drank from the Well of Sorrows,” he said to Flemeth. “Did you come to force her into servitude?”

Flemeth threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, what a servant she would make!”

“Then what is it you want?” Morrigan demanded.

“One thing, and one thing only,” Flemeth said. Her gaze drifted down to Kieran.

Morrigan’s jaw dropped, and her cheeks drained of colour. Kieran gazed at her sadly. “I have to go now, Mother,” he said.

“No,” she snapped. She glared at Flemeth. “I will not allow it!”

Flemeth folded her arms. “He carries a piece of what once was, snatched from the jaws of darkness. You know this.”

“He is more than that,” Morrigan yelled.

Flemeth shrugged elegantly. “As am I, yet do you hear me complain? Our destinies are not so easily avoided, dear girl.”

Morrigan stepped forward. “He is not your pawn, Mother,” she snarled. “I will not let you use him!” She spun toward Fenris and Hawke. “Flemeth extends her life by possessing the bodies of her daughters,” she said. “That was the fate she intended for me. I thwarted her, and now she intends to use Kieran instead!”

“Have you not used him?” Flemeth retorted. “Was that not your purpose? The reason you agreed to his creation?”

“That was then,” Morrigan shouted. “Now he…” She broke off and gazed desperately at Kieran, and when she spoke again, her voice was cracked with distress. “He is my son.”

Flemeth raised her eyebrows slightly. Then Kieran spoke again in a soft, calm voice. “Mother, I have to.”

Morrigan shook her head. “You do not belong to her, Kieran,” she said desperately. “Neither of us do.”

“Why now?” Hawke said.

They all turned to look at her. Her arms were folded still, and all traces of jocularity were gone from her face. “You made do without Kieran for ten years,” she said to Flemeth. “Why do you suddenly want him now?”

“I did not know where he was,” Flemeth said. “Morrigan cleverly hid him from me… until now.”

Morrigan’s stricken face tensed even further. “‘Twas the Well,” she breathed.

Flemeth shook her head in a condescending way. “Always grasping beyond your reach, despite all that I taught you.”

Fenris frowned at her. “Does Morrigan speak the truth?” he demanded. “Are you seeking to possess Kieran’s body?”

“If my daughter believes it, then it must be so,” Flemeth said.

Fenris scowled more deeply. Then Hawke spoke again. “And what if we say no?” she said in a hard voice. “If we tell you that Kieran is coming home with us?”

Flemeth glanced at Hawke as though she was a disobedient child. Then she gestured with her hand.

In an exact mirror of Flemeth’s gesture, Morrigan’s arm lifted, and a glittering ball of magic shot at Hawke.

Hawke squeaked in alarm and hastily threw up a barrier. At the same moment, Fenris phased toward Morrigan and grabbed her arm. “Stop,” he barked – not at Morrigan, but at Flemeth.

Morrigan answered anyway. “I – I cannot,” she cried.

Flemeth lowered her arm, and Morrigan’s arm went lax in Fenris’s hand. He immediately released her and planted himself in front of Hawke.

“Try that again, and I will tear you apart,” he snarled at Flemeth.

Her gaze flickered over his glowing lyrium brands, then back to his face. “In this place, my power is greater than yours. Than any of yours,” she added with a glance at Morrigan and Hawke. “Do not tempt me further.”

Fenris glowered at her furiously and kept his tattoos alight. Then Morrigan let out a ragged sob and fell to her knees. “Kieran…”

Kieran looked up at Flemeth, and Flemeth met his gaze. A moment later, she raised her eyebrows slightly.

“As you wish,” she said, and she looked at Morrigan. “Hear my proposal, dear girl: let me take the lad, and you are free of me forever. I will never interfere with or harm you again. Or keep the lad with you… and you will never be safe from me.” She lifted her chin slightly. “I will have my due.”

Morrigan scrambled to her feet. “He returns with me,” she said eagerly.

Flemeth blinked. “Decided so quickly?”

“Do whatever you wish. Take over my body now if you must, but Kieran will be free of your clutches,” Morrigan said viciously. She took two bold steps toward Flemeth. “I am many things, but I will not be the mother you were to me.”

Flemeth didn’t reply. As Fenris tensely watched, her face seemed to melt from its usual haughtiness to a wistful sort of sadness.

She turned to Kieran, then took his hands in hers. He lifted his chin to meet her gaze, and a brilliant white-blue light burst from his chest.

Fenris tensed in alarm, and Hawke’s fingers tightly clasped his hand. The light floated softly toward Flemeth, then touched her chest and abruptly disappeared.

Kieran blinked at Flemeth. “No more dreams?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No more dreams,” she said softly.

Kieran smiled, then trotted over to Morrigan, who swiftly wrapped him in her arms. Flemeth, meanwhile, was watching them calmly. “A soul is not forced upon the unwilling, Morrigan,” she said. “You were never in danger from me.”

Morrigan looked up at her, but didn’t speak. Flemeth nodded once, then took a step back. “Listen to the voices,” she said sagely. “They will teach you as I never did.” She turned and began walking away.

“Wait!” Morrigan called.

Flemeth didn’t look back. A few seconds later, she melted into the mist of the Fade and disappeared.

Morrigan exhaled slowly, then turned to Kieran and cupped his cheeks in her hands. “Are you all right?” she said anxiously. “You were not hurt?”

He looked up at her. “I feel lonely,” he said softly.

Morrigan’s posture softened, and she smiled at him and stroked his hair. Then Hawke wandered over to join them. “No need to feel lonely, Kieran,” she said encouragingly. “You’ve got lots of friends waiting back at Skyhold, right? Toby needs someone to play fetch with, for instance. His legs are a little stiff these days, and someone’s got to help him stay limber.” She glanced at Morrigan. “If it’s all right with your mum, of course.”

Kieran looked pleadingly at Morrigan. “May I, Mother?”

“Of course,” Morrigan said. “Once we are free from the Fade.” She shot Hawke a small smile and ushered Kieran along with a hand at his back, and Fenris and Hawke trailed behind them.

“So,” Hawke said quietly. “Mythal’s a spirit, right? We’re on the same page about that?”

Fenris nodded slowly. “It fits the pattern, yes. She sounds exactly like Anders’s vengeance demon.”

Hawke huffed quietly. “‘Vengeance’ is the right word. I don’t exactly want to have her on our bad side. I suppose it’s too late for that, though.” She gave Fenris an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Fenris, I didn’t mean to antagonize her,” she said. “It’s just… seeing her threatening that poor kid, and Morrigan literally unable to help him because her own mother controls her? It’s…” She grimaced and shook her head. “That’s so many levels of fucked up, it’s not even funny. And I find everything funny.”

“You’re right about that,” Fenris murmured. Flemeth’s absolute control over Morrigan was extremely chilling. And yet, it could be worse.

“At least Morrigan still has control of her own mind,” he remarked.

Hawke tilted her head. “Hmm?”

“She was able to say that she did not want to do what she was being forced to do,” Fenris explained. “As long as she has that…” He glanced thoughtfully at Morrigan’s mostly-bare back. “For her sake, I hope she retains that spirit.” Then he frowned at his own word choice. “I don’t mean… not spirit. ‘Sense of self’, maybe.”

Hawke looked at him. “That is kind of the question though, isn’t it? What the fuck are spirits, or a sense of self for that matter?” She ticked off her fingers. “We now know three people who have harboured another… something, or someone, in their own body. There’s Anders and Venjustice, who is a spirit; Kieran and the Old God soul, which was a… a soul, from what Morrigan said; and Flemeth with Mythal, which is a goddess, I guess, but even Flemeth wouldn’t say what the fuck that means.” Her face was twisted with confusion as she looked up at him. “So are all consciousnesses just different kinds of spirits?”

He rubbed his forehead. He was equally confused. “That seems an extreme conclusion,” he said slowly.

“Is it, though?” Hawke asked. “Maybe we’re all just spirits melded with a body. Maybe…” She broke off, and Fenris watched with growing alarm as her face went slack.

She grabbed Fenris’s hand. “Maybe what Tranquility actually does is knock your spirit out of you!” she said excitedly. “And curing Tranquility invites your spirit to come back!”

He recoiled slightly, both at her enthusiasm and at the unpleasant reminder of a possible Tranquility cure. “But… but that’s not how Cassandra described it,” he said. “And I’ve heard Cole talking about it with her. He said it was a spirit of faith that touched her mind.”

She wilted. “Oh. Well, never mind then.” Her tense grip on his hand lessened to a normal affectionate hold. “But… it’s a neat idea, isn’t it? That souls and spirits are one and the same.”

Fenris grunted. “Unnerving is what I would call it. Besides, that is not how Solas describes spirits. They’re embodiments of a singular emotion or virtue, according to him.”

Hawke gave him a sly smile. “Ah, look at how well you listened to him. You’re going to steal my spot as his star pupil.”

Fenris gave her a flat look, and she chuckled. “All right, all right. I get your point. It would be interesting, though, right? If souls really did just come to live in the Fade after a person dies. Like that spirit that was imitating the Divine the last time we were here. How crazy would it be if that really was her, um, soul or whatever? Just… hanging around in the Fade.”

Fenris looked at her. Her tone was casual, and her face was pleasant and calm as she looked around at their hazy and macabre surroundings. Fenris carefully laced his fingers with hers and squeezed her hand.

“I miss him,” she said abruptly.

Carver’s stubborn and determined face flashed across Fenris’s mind. He took a deep breath. “I know,” he said softly.

She pressed her lips together and continued to look around at the Fade. A tense moment later, she spoke again. “Do you think a spirit would ever imitate him?”

I don’t know, Fenris thought. He felt poorly equipped to have this conversation with her, but he had to try. “Perhaps,” he said.

She was quiet for a minute, and Fenris watched with an aching heart as she surreptitiously wiped her eye. “Maybe I’ll try writing him another veilfire letter,” she said.

He squeezed her hand. “I think that is a fine idea.”

She finally smiled at him with reddened eyes, and he smiled back at her despite the lump of vicarious grief in his throat.

They walked in silence for a moment. Then Fenris spoke up. “Something that alarms me, though. Flemeth’s ability to… resurrect.” He looked down at Hawke. “It’s reminiscent of Corypheus, isn’t it?”

She raised her eyebrows, so he went on. “When Merrill brought her out of that amulet. She stated that she was just a fragment. She seemed to imply that… that she could not be so easily killed, since fragments could be… preserved, like in that amulet. It strikes a similar note to Corypheus’s manifestations, doesn’t it?”

While he spoke, her eyebrows rose with wonder and worry both. “So you think Mythal is… um… that she’s like Corypheus?” she asked.

“Or that Corypheus is like her, if she is truly an ancient being as she claims,” Fenris said.

“Shit,” Hawke breathed. She gazed at him wordlessly for a moment, then sighed and tugged a tuft of her short dark hair. “Well, we’ve got our homework cut out for us.”

“Unfortunately so,” Fenris said ruefully. “When we get back to Skyhold, speak to Solas about… all of this. I am curious to know what he thinks of Mythal’s existence being this… tangible.” He frowned as his thoughts returned to Solas. The elven mage had been so vociferous about the dangers of drinking from the Well of Sorrows. Had he known all along that Mythal’s existence was…well, that she existed?

Was this part of the secret that Solas was hiding?

Hawke looked at him in surprise. “You don’t want to talk to him yourself?”

Fenris pursed his lips. He did want to question Solas about this, but he still thought Hawke was more likely to get answers than he.

“I will speak to Morrigan,” he said. “I will find out what the voices from the Vir’Abelasan have told her.”

Her eyebrows rose even further. “Are you sure you want to talk to Morrigan and not Solas? Given how much you, um, hate her?” She laughed nervously.

Fenris gave her a chiding smirk. “I will not challenge her to one-on-one combat. I promise you that.”

Hawke elbowed him playfully, and he sobered. “After what transpired here, I… I may understand her better,” he said. He looked at Morrigan once more. Kieran was chattering cheerfully to her as they walked along, and her hand was resting on his shoulder in a restrained but clearly affectionate gesture.

He looked at Hawke once more. “I shall do my best to be civil.”

She smiled and twined her fingers with his. A moment later, the eluvian was in front of them, its surface shimmering with its usual kaleidoscope of colours, and Fenris didn’t bother to wonder why the walk back to the eluvian had taken so little time.

Morrigan nodded politely to Hawke and Fenris as they drew close. “Kieran has gone through already,” she said.

Hawke smiled and gave her arm a friendly squeeze before stepping through the eluvian, and Fenris followed her, with Morrigan close behind.

Varric and Dorian were waiting in the storeroom, and Fenris nodded reassuringly to them both. Varric’s posture relaxed, and he patted Kieran on the shoulder. “You gave everyone a scare, imp.”

“I’m sorry, Master Tethras,” Kieran said politely.

Varric smirked at Dorian. “This kid and his manners.”

Dorian chuckled. “Impeccable as always.” He looked at Morrigan, who had just finished extinguishing the eluvian. “I’m telling you, Morrigan, he needs a lesson in the ways of the common folk. A little dirt under his nails will do him some good.”

Morrigan frowned, but Hawke snickered. “Like you should talk, Messere Perfect-Hygiene.”

Dorian inspected his immaculate fingernails. “True. I stand corrected.”

Hawke punched him playfully in the arm, then patted Kieran’s shoulder. “We’re going to go play fetch with Toby,” she said brightly to Varric and Dorian. “You’re coming along, right? The more the merrier?”

Dorian sighed. “Must I?”

Hawke punched him again, and he tutted. “Fine, fine. But I’m only watching,” he said warningly. “I refuse to touch that beast’s drool-covered toys.”

Kieran smiled, and Varric shrugged affably. “I’m in. Why not?” He glanced at Fenris. “Coming, elf?”

“Not just now,” Fenris said.

Varric raised his eyebrows, but nodded. Hawke shot Fenris a jaunty wink as she ushered Kieran away, and a moment later, Fenris and Morrigan were alone in the storeroom.

Morrigan sighed. “My mother wanted the Old God soul all along,” she said. “She has the soul of an elven goddess – or whatever Mythal truly was – and her plans are unknown to me.” She gave Fenris a rueful look. “Is it worth reminding myself that perhaps I do not know everything after all?”

Fenris raised his eyebrows at her humble admission. And yet, this wasn’t the only time her humility had surprised him today.

“Did you never suspect what or who she was?” he asked.

Morrigan gestured to the storeroom door, and she and Fenris slowly made their way out of the storeroom as she replied. “I knew she kept the truth from me. I even suspected she was not truly human. But this?” She shook her head. “I always thought the so-called ‘elven gods’ were little more than glorified rulers, but now I have doubt. And doubt is… an uncomfortable thing, Inquisitor.”

“I can’t decide if you are shortsighted or fortunate to only be realizing that now,” he said, but in a much softer tone than he would have previously used.

Morrigan shot him an annoyed look, then sighed. “Just be thankful that Hawke did not drink from the Well,” she said. “I am evidently tied to my mother for eternity.” Her tone was distinctly bitter; understandably so, given what Fenris and Hawke had just witnessed.

They were silent as they stepped into the garden. Morrigan strolled through the garden toward the pagoda, and as Fenris followed her, he watched Hawke and Kieran playing with Toby.

They were running around the garden chasing after the overjoyed mabari. Varric and Dorian were standing on the other side of the garden, and as Fenris watched, Toby pelted straight toward Dorian with a ball in his mouth.

Dorian grimaced and shied away from Toby, and Varric patted Toby’s rump and said something to Dorian. Dorian rolled his eyes and very gingerly took the drool-covered ball from Toby’s mouth, then threw the ball and immediately wiped his fingers on Varric’s shirt.

Fenris smirked. Morrigan sighed and leaned against one of the pagoda’s pillars, and Fenris leaned against the other.

“Now we must prepare to face Corypheus himself,” Morrigan said. “It seems Mother was right: the voices of the Well tell me I will be able to match his dragon. All that remains is for you to find him.”

“Leliana’s people are already searching,” he confirmed.

Morrigan nodded in turn, then tapped her fingers thoughtfully on the pillar. “Knowing now what we do, I feel certain what happened at the Temple of Mythal must somehow have been my mother’s influence.”

Fenris nodded, then frowned as something occurred to him. “We should have asked her if the orb belonged to her,” he said. “The one Corypheus has been using to cause all this chaos.”

Morrigan raised her eyebrows. “You think perchance that she gave him the orb?”

“It is a possibility,” Fenris said. “She is the only elven deity we know.”

Morrigan twisted her lips at his wry tone. “Perhaps,” she said slowly. “It is hard to imagine her motivation for doing so. Then again, everything about her is hard to imagine.” She shook her head ruefully. “All my years spent hunting for arcane mysteries, and the greatest was the one I left behind.”

Fenris eyed her appraisingly for a moment. Then he turned his gaze to Hawke and Kieran’s antics.

He and Morrigan silently watched them playing with Toby for a time. Then Morrigan spoke. “I am uncertain what effect this will have on Kieran,” she said softly. “The Old God soul was a constant throughout his entire life. Its voice was as familiar to him as my own.” She looked at Fenris, and her eyebrows were lifted with melancholy. “He said he was lonely. That is not a feeling I ever wanted for my son.”

Fenris nodded a silent acknowledgement. He was familiar with loneliness, and her wish to protect Kieran from that terrible emptiness was understandable.

She sighed and looked at her son once more. “Kieran had a destiny, and now it is in Flemeth’s hands. I suppose we shall see what she does with it.”

Fenris shifted his weight. “His life is worth more than the power he held.”

Morrigan glared at him. “Do you think I am unaware–”

He held up a hand to cut her off. “I am speaking a truth you already know,” he said. “His life matters to you more than anything. More than your own life. More, even, than that ancient magic you are so fond of. You proved that today.”

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, and Fenris couldn’t blame her; he had never treated her with the kind of patience he was showing now. But until today, she had also never shown herself to be anything other than a dangerous, power-hungry mage.

He folded his arms and looked at Hawke and Kieran. “I don’t know much about being a parent,” he said. “Or… anything at all, if I’m honest. But… I believe a parent should be completely selfless when it comes to their child.” He glanced at Morrigan. “You would have sacrificed your life to keep him safe.”

She lifted her chin and folded her arms as well. “Should I be grateful for your approval, Inquisitor?”

With effort, he ignored her haughty tone. “I commend your choice, Morrigan. That is all I wish to say.”

Morrigan stared hard at him for a moment longer, then unfolded her arms and leaned against the pillar once more. “She was testing me, and I cannot tell whether I passed.”

Fenris shrugged. “Your son is safe. Whether or not you passed is of little consequence. And now that the archdemon soul has been stripped from him, he’s… normal.” He gave Morrigan a quick wry glance. “I nearly envy him myself.”

She raised one eyebrow, and her gaze flicked briefly to his verdant left palm before returning to his face. “I suppose you would envy such a thing.”

Fenris decided to overlook the hint of condescension in her tone. He had no shame in admitting that he would have liked a peaceful and normal life, if ever he’d had the choice.

They were silent again for a time. It appeared that Hawke’s game of fetch had evolved into some sort of impromptu parkour; Kieran was running wildly around the garden, jumping off of benches and leaping over rocks and bushes while Toby lolloped along in his wake, and Dorian, Varric, and Hawke were cheering him on.

Kieran slowed as he ran over to them, and Hawke ruffled his hair – hair that Fenris idly noted was a very similar shade of brown to Hawke’s. A moment later, she and Kieran were haring around the garden together with a barking Toby racing in their wake, and Fenris couldn’t help but smile as he watched her playing so exuberantly with Morrigan’s son.

Then Morrigan surprised him by speaking. “For what it is worth, you need not know much about being a parent before becoming one,” she said.

Fenris glanced at her. Her eyebrows were quirked in a knowing manner.

He looked away from her and rubbed the back of his neck. “I take it you knew little of what you were getting into,” he said gruffly.

She nodded. “On the night Kieran was conceived, I did not know the course I had set in motion for myself. I thought I did, but I was…” She smirked. “I was a foolish girl, exactly as my mother had always said.” She folded her arms once more, but for the first time today, her expression was content.

“The past ten years have been exceedingly difficult,” she told Fenris. “Yet I do not regret them.”

Fenris regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded. “An interesting perspective. I… appreciate it.”

She nodded, then shot him another suspicious look. “Kieran and I will leave once Corypheus is defeated. You would do well to remember this, and to remember that you cannot stop me.”

Fenris instinctively frowned at her hostility. But for the first time, he heard defensiveness in her tone rather than arrogance.

He forced himself to relax. “If your time here is limited, then share with me what you’ve learned from the Vir’Abelasan.”

Her belligerent scowl collapsed into a look of surprise. A split second later, her usual cool expression was back in place. She straightened and nodded. “Of course. My knowledge is, after all, why I am here.”

Fenris pursed his lips as he followed her over to the pagoda bench and the open tome that was lying there. Morrigan shifted the Elvhen tome onto her lap and flipped to a section at the beginning of the book. “Given your mistrust of the eluvians, perhaps this will interest you. It was always assumed their use was lost after the Tevinter conquest of Arlathan. But the ancient elves–”

“Mother, look!”

Morrigan and Fenris looked up. Kieran was balancing on his hands while Hawke held his feet. A moment later, Hawke released his ankles.

Kieran maintained the handstand, then took a few wobbly steps forward on his hands before collapsing into a heap on the grass. He pushed his hair out of his face and grinned. “Wasn’t that fantastic, Mother?” he called. “Maybe I can learn to walk all the way across the garden on my hands!”

Morrigan huffed and rubbed her nose before replying. “Be careful, Kieran,” she warned. “Do not attempt that trick any closer to the Inquisitor’s herb garden.”

“I won’t! I promise!” Kieran gestured eagerly to Hawke, then ran over to one of the perpetually laden apple trees.

Fenris watched fondly as Hawke gave Kieran a boost to reach the lowest branch. Once the boy was in the tree, Hawke turned to look at Fenris.

She blew him a kiss. He smiled warmly at her, then turned back to Morrigan.

She was also smiling. The moment their eyes met, Morrigan cleared her throat and gestured at the book. “Shall I continue, Inquisitor?”

He nodded in a businesslike manner. “Yes. Go on.”

Fenris and Morrigan continued to slowly pore over the book while Hawke and Kieran played with Toby, Varric, and Dorian. And for a short time, they weren’t the exalted Inquisitor and the notorious Witch of the Wilds. They were simply two people who shared a common goal: to protect their families, no matter the cost.

#fenris #fenris fic #Lovers in a Dangerous Time #fenris the inquisitor #fenquisition #fenhawke #fenris/hawke #fenris x hawke #fenris/f!hawke #fenris x f!hawke #fenris/femhawke #fenris x femhawke #fenrynne #pikapeppa writes

14 notes · View notes