A Long Way to Go (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Behind Bars

Tallis nearly caught them in a very awkward position, but Fenris's sharp ears heard her coming, and he redoubled his efforts so that Hawke was gasping her pleasure just as Tallis knocked on the door.

"We're coming," Hawke called, grinning wickedly at him, and proceeded to make sure he did so.

Hastily they put their clothes back together and retrieved their swords, opening the door to let Tallis in.

"I wanted to make sure the household settled before we got started." She looked at Fenris, who was still breathing heavily from the aftermath. "Are you sure you want to come with us? It might be better to leave someone behind as a lookout."

"You must be mad," he told her bluntly. There was not a chance in the Void that he was going to let his Hawke go off with this woman alone in the depths of night in some Orlesian noble's home.

She shrugged. "Suit yourself."

They made their way through the silent halls, Tallis in the lead and Varric bringing up the rear.

A guard stepped out of a room on the main floor, his mouth open in surprise as he saw Tallis and Hawke in front of him. Fenris clung to the shadows, as did Varric behind him.

Tallis took a step toward the guard, saying softly, "There's no need for you to die today, friend. Just move on; you never saw us."

He hesitated, then lifted a hand to his mouth and shouted "Thieves!"

But the word had barely risen to his lips before Tallis's dagger buried itself in his neck. As he collapsed to the floor, she went to him and removed her knife, wiping the blood off on the guard's jacket. "We'll need to hide him somewhere."

"Right." Hawke caught him by the shoulders and dragged him back into the room he had come out of, shoving the body under a table covered by a floor-length cloth.

"He could have walked away," Tallis said sadly from the doorway.

"They so rarely do," Hawke said. Enough men had thrown themselves on her blade she had stopped questioning why they bothered.

"I didn't want to kill him. There are other paths; they do not all need to lead to the same destination.'

"Actually, they do," Hawke pointed out. "We're all going to die eventually. Some people choose sooner rather than later."

"Is that why you do what you do?" Tallis asked. "Because you choose sooner?"

Hawke opened her mouth to give a glib answer, but over Tallis's shoulder she saw the gleam of Fenris's markings, and she closed it again. Was that why she couldn't put the sword down, because she thought it was all supposed to end in death? It had for her parents, for her brother, for Anders and Sebastian, and for so many others in her life ... but it didn't have to be that way for her. She could grow old at Fenris's side.

Tallis got up. "Enough talk. We need to hurry if we're not going to run into more guards."

The halls of Chateau Haine were reasonably quiet. Possibly too quiet? Something didn't feel right to Hawke. Surely an Orlesian nobleman didn't need guards patrolling everywhere on the night of a banquet ... but if he had valuable items hidden somewhere in his chateau, perhaps he ought to have guards.

For that matter, she thought suddenly, her own presence was rather suspicious—showing up late, after having had no particular interest in this event previously? Maybe there ought to be guards on her. Maybe there were and they were just very good at what they did.