Beneficium Accipere Libertatem Est Vendere

Beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere. To accept a favor is to sell one's freedom.

Chapter 1: Hospitality

Varania returned to a tavern in disarray. Even after hours spent wandering the streets, loitering near the Hanged Man long after her brother and his companions had departed, she could still smell the stench of the corpses Danarius had summoned to his aid, and the ozone aftertaste of spells lingered in the mages' wake.

Most of the corpses were now piled in the alley out behind the tavern, at least. She had watched as the bartender dragged them out, one by one, muttering under his breath. When five minutes passed and he had not burst through the door again tugging yet another slaver or skeleton out by the ankles, Varania slipped back in and made her way quickly toward the stairs at the back of the common room. She veered past overturned tables and chairs, stepping carefully over blood stains yet to be scrubbed from the floor.

It would have been easier just to return to the dockside inn where she'd found a cheap room for the week of this charade, this trap in which she'd been made the bait, but her bloody patron had confiscated the funds her brother had sent, along with his letter, when he hatched this plan to use her to get his hands on Leto again. His offer was one she truly could not refuse: for all her precious freedom, she barely found work enough to pay the rent these days. So she took his promises: apprenticeship, training, status. She might even rise to the Magisterium - rare for an elf to be elevated so, but Danarius had the influence to put her there.

Had had the influence. He was as limp as any other corpse when the bartender dragged him out into the alley half an hour ago. But without him, Varania was stuck in Kirkwall. Stranded in this filthy, mad town, where to reveal her magic would bring their strange, hostile Templars after her. She'd be on the first ship back to Minrathous as soon as she could afford it, but the corpses in the alley had yielded no coin. She'd swallowed her pride and steeled herself to check every last one, even the broken body of the magister who had stolen everything from her years ago, when he traded her freedom for her brother, then promised her the world if she would give up her brother to him again. It had seemed a fair trade; as far as she was concerned her brother had died when Danarius transformed him, and she had no hope of getting him back. The Fenris who signed the letter calling her to Kirkwall had sounded like a stranger. She had half believed he was a stranger, some trickster claiming to be Leto just to lure her into a trap. It was too late to recover the brother she had loved. So she had consented to the magister's trap instead.

And yet...there was something in his eyes, the mirror of her own, when he spoke to her that evening before Danarius had sprung his trap. It had almost seemed possible…

Until those eyes blazed with fury as he turned from their master's corpse to her, ready to add one more body to those the bartender would have to carry away. Spared from his wrath only by the intervention of Leto's companion, the mage who looked at him - at Varania, too - with such gentleness, she had fled the Hanged Man before her brother could regret his mercy.

Perhaps it would have been better if he'd killed her then. His kindnesses had always proved fraught with complications. The freedom he had won for her and their mother had been no boon, and now he had left her stranded and alone in Kirkwall. Approaching him to ask for coin to send her home again was out of the question, so she returned to the Hanged Man in hopes of finding something of value in the rooms Danarius had rented, just enough to get her out of this place, this trap for her brother that had twisted around and caught her instead.

Ten minutes of searching bore no fruit. For all the luxury he had been accustomed to in Tevinter, the magister had traveled light. Perhaps he had carried his coinpurse into battle and the victors had claimed it; or perhaps the innkeeper had beaten her to the search, claiming Danarius' coin in recompense for the trouble of hauling him out to the alley. Either way, Varania was no closer to Minrathous than when Leto first showed up to meet her.

Lost in troubled thoughts, she turned the corner to head down the stairs into the common room again. A moment of confusion, then, as something - someone - collided with her from the step below and her rear met the top step with an embarrassing thump.

She looked up, in slightly less of a daze than the distraction that had gotten her knocked over, to see a beardless dwarf sheepishly scratching behind his ear with one hand and holding the other out, with a slowly expanding smile, to help her up. "Well, I'll be a nug's uncle," said the dwarf. "You're the sister, right? Varania?"

She scowled at his hand. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't. You also have no idea how glad I am to see you here, safe and sound. Hawke's had everyone scouring the city for you. Varric Tethras, by the way," he said, reaching a hand for her again; this time, hesitantly, she took it and allowed herself to be set back on her feet.

"Hawke?" she asked.

"You met her earlier. Me, too. Well, in a manner of speaking. Things did, uh, happen a little quickly and before you know it there's a magister and his whole army dead on the floor. Doesn't leave much time for small talk, does it?"

She remembers him now, the dwarf who had run to help when Leto - Fenris - and his companion had raised arms against Danarius. She had barely noted him in the corner, picking off demons and skeletons with that contraption of a crossbow, but afterwards - when Fenris had turned his anger upon her -

"You and...Hawke," she recalled. "You talked him out of...of…" She had watched him kill Danarius with little more than a gesture, those lyrium brands the master had given him flaring, ironically, in vengeance. He had been ready to end her, his own sister, just as quickly, but the woman and the dwarf had counseled mercy instead. He had listened. She had fled, while she could.

"He didn't ask you to come here for it to end like that," Varric shook his head, glancing thoughtfully back down the stairs.

"Nevertheless," said Varania, "it is ended. There is nothing for me here."

"Okay, let's not be hasty," said Varric, holding up his hands, palms out as if to halt that line of thinking. "We were really hoping, Hawke and me, that you hadn't skipped town yet, and look, here you are. Coincidence? Let's say not. Stay a while, Varania. Give it time. Another chance."

"I...cannot remain," she said, the words tripping over her own pride. "The rooms here...I cannot afford…"

"Not to worry," Varric grinned, teeth bared, "Hawke's covering it."

"Hawke, again," Varania frowned. "The mage who arrived with Leto? His new mistress?"

Varric snorted with laughter. "Better not let him hear you say that. Or her, for that matter. Hawke's a friend. And friends know when a friend's being too stupid for his own good. Look, elf, your brother is not having the best day right now, but he'll come round."

"He is not having the best day?" Varania sputtered, glaring down her nose at the dwarf. "He tried to kill me!"

"To be fair, you sort of started it. Hey, everyone makes mistakes, this whole meeting could have gone a million times better, but it could be worse. You're both still alive to give it another chance."

"You assume," she said, gathering up her skirts in a huff and turning away from him, only to falter when she realized away meant back up the stairs, not an avenue of escape, "that I wish for another chance. I lost my brother years ago, dwarf. I am done with him." She turned back to face him, arms crosssed.

Varric shook his head. "Everyone wants another chance. Look, just give it a few days, all right? Enjoy a free stay in Lowtown's finest shitty accommodations, courtesy of Hawke's incurable case of fix-it-itis, and try talking to him again when he's had some time to regret how things ended today."

"I should just leave," she mumbled, not meeting his eyes. "I have been gone from Minrathous long enough. And I have no wish to take your charity."

"What charity?" Varric grinned. "Think of it as hospitality. Be our guest, Varania. Someday we'll come crash your place in Minrathous and return the favor, I promise."

Varania bristled at the dwarf's familiarity, and yet...what was in Minrathous to draw her back in such a hurry? She had gambled everything on Danarius' promises and lost.

Were a dwarf's promises any surer bet?

It was worth remembering, she decided, that the dwarf and Hawke and her brother had held their own against Danarius. A magister of reknown, wielding ruthless power, dead in the alley. But did she care to know this brother better, with his new name, this stranger who had cast her adrift into a tenuous liberty? Was there any point in even trying?

His eyes, the mirror of her own. There had been hope in them when first he caught sight of her, before he knew her betrayal.

She did not like to replace that hope with the rage when he had looked at her last and ordered her to leave.

"Fine," she answered the dwarf. "But I am not staying in the rooms Danarius has...vacated. You had better have something else decent here."

The rooms at the Hanged Man were hardly decent (apart from Varric's own elaborate suite, into which he ushered her to wait while he made arrangements with the innkeeper), but it was an improvement on her dockside room. The dwarf even slipped an urchin a coin to run and fetch her things so she need not return to the docks herself. Varania surmised he was simply wary to let her out of his sight again; nevertheless, she found herself relieved, after all those hours lurking outside the tavern's door, to collapse into one of his chairs, safe and warm and with no immediate crises to prepare for.

Well. Depending on how soon she would see her brother again. That was undoubtedly a crisis in the making. She pulled the chair closer to the fire, staring into it as she tortured herself with thoughts of what could go wrong.

At least they had established the very worst possible outcome of such a meeting, since it had nearly come to pass once already today. She could conjure up no disaster equal to her heart crushed by the ghost of his hand. How poetic, though, when he had crushed it metaphorically all those years ago by abandoning her and Mother to the supposed kindness of freedom.

She tried to counter that scenario with the best that might happen, but it was foolish to even dream that he could rush in begging her forgiveness, after today's debacle. In the quiet of the dwarf's cozy chamber, she admitted to herself, blinking away odious tears, that she had burned that bridge quite thoroughly.

She woke with a start at a hand on her shoulder; exhaustion, it seemed, had drowned out even her worries, and she had dozed off in Varric's sitting room. Expecting to see the dwarf, she glanced up and her gaze traveled from the gauntlet on her shoulder up a red sleeve to a pair of olive eyes and a dusting of freckles above a tentative smile.

"Sorry to wake you," said the woman who had fought alongside her brother, "but your room's ready and the boy's back with your bags."

"Also," came Varric's voice from across the room, "she's been hovering at the door wanting to talk to you for the past hour."

"I have not!" the woman objected, firing a glance at the dwarf.

"Fine, half an hour then. It's a wonder she slept through the pacing."

Varania stirred, tucking behind her ear the strands of hair that had escaped her bun and wandered down to play with her eyelashes as she slept. "I should go," she said, pushing up out of the chair.

Varric and his friend both looked at her in alarm.

"To my room," she clarified. "You said it was ready."

"Oh. Yes," said the woman. "I did want to talk to you, though, but if you'd like to get settled first…"

"I...no. You are here now. I shouldn't make you wait." She settled back on the edge of the chair, hands folded politely in her lap, keeping an eye on Varric and his friend as the woman pulled up a chair to join her and the dwarf went to a cupboard, withdrawing glasses and bottles.

"I'm Hawke, by the way," the woman confirmed her suspicions. "Lisbet Hawke, not that anyone around here remembers the first part. Thank you for staying, Varania."

She shrugged. "Where else am I to go?"

"Minrathous?" Varric arched an eyebrow. "At least that was my impression when I bumped into you on your way out of here."

"If I had funds for a ship back to Minrathous, I would have left already," Varania admitted. "I am at your mercy."

"Ah," said Hawke. "I see. Look, if you really, truly don't want to be here, you don't - I mean, I'll help you get home if that's your choice. Least I can do. It's at least partly my fault you're stuck here."

Varania looked at her dubiously. "You did not write asking me to come." She tilted her head as a thought occurred to her; the letters had hardly sounded like Leto but… "Did you?"

"Me? Oh, no," Hawke shook her head, a smile tugging at her lips. "That was all Fenris' idea. I thought he'd dismissed what Hadriana said about his sister as just a trick, but apparently it meant more to him than he let on."

"Fenris," she repeated her brother's new name with distaste, even as the dwarf returned to the fireside, handing a drink to Hawke and offering another to Varania. She regarded it warily and finally shook her head. Varric shrugged and raised the glass to his own lips as he stood by the fire.

Hawke's eyes narrowed. "You can't expect him to go by a name lost with all his other memories."

Varania shifted, tense with the weight of her own memory. "And what else was lost with these memories? Does anything of my brother remain?"

"I didn't know him then, obviously," Hawke answered, leaning toward Varania ever so slightly, the wineglass dangling from her fingers as she braced her arm on her knee, "but if your brother was clever, and quiet with a dry wit that shows itself rarely but to devastating effect, and brave and strong and as stubborn as the day is long -" she broke off this catalogue of praise at the dwarf's chuckle. "What?" she grunted, looking at him with narrowed eyes.

"No, do go on," Varric laughed. "This is great. I should be writing it down, really. Maker knows I get little enough to work with from either of you, ordinarilly. Varania, you should get her riled up more often."

"I am not," insisted Hawke, cheeks reddening, "riled up, Varric."

"Whatever you say," the dwarf smirked. "How is her broody brother doing, anyway?"

Hawke leaned back in the chair, glancing out the window. "I saw him home. He had little enough to say -"

"Naturally."

"- even for him, Varric. I'm not sure he even noticed when I took my leave, but he'll...he'll be fine, in time."

"He always did like to sulk," Varania muttered, drawing curious looks from the other two that made her clench her hands into fists over her knees. "As a boy. If things did not go his way, he'd disappear for hours and never even tell me or Mother what was wrong."

A heartbeat, a blink of Hawke's eyes, and then a laugh as she answered, "Brothers, eh? Mine tended to take out his frustrations with his fists, even when he was littler than me. Actually, more so when he was littler than me. The taller he got, the sulkier he got." She hummed, regarding the elf shrewdly. "Which reminds me. I don't even know - I don't think Fenris does either - which of you's the older sibling."

"I…" It came as a surprise to Varania that she had to think a moment to answer this. It was not that many years since she lost her Leto, was it? Could his absence, his transformation, truly erase the years of growing up together? "I was three, I think, or perhaps four, when he was born."

Hawke nodded knowingly. "It's a lot of pressure, being eldest."

"We were always afraid," Varania recalled, "that one or the other of us would be sold away from the family. That sort of thing happened all the time. A master would not hesitate to sell a slave if it suited him, no matter whom he was related to. And then this thing we feared most...Leto made it happen."

"You said, earlier," Hawke nodded toward the door as if earlier meant over dinner and not after your life was spared for leading your brother into a trap, "that he won your freedom."

"Freedom was meaningless. As a slave, at least you have a roof over your head and food in your mouth. We became liberati, Mother and I, and had to fend for ourselves. It seemed wonderful, at first, until we learned how difficult it is to find work as freedwomen in a society run on slave labor. Even having magic counts for little unless another mage trains and sponsors you."

"And Fenris wasn't there to help," Hawke sympathized.

"I saw him in the street once," Varania frowned. "Transformed into Danarius' beast. He walked beside the master's carriage like a guard dog. People took one look at those markings and his glare and the sword on his back and kept out of the way. I only knew him when I met his eyes, he was so changed. He did not even recognize me then."

"He recognized you tonight," Hawke mused gently, and Varania looked away, biting her lip.

"I do not wish to speak of my brother now," she finally said, grasping suddenly for a change of subject. "Tell me of yours."

"Carver?" Hawke grinned, a feral expression scarcely reaching her eyes. "My little brother went and joined the Templars."

Varania looked up, round-eyed, catching sight of the staff behind Hawke's chair. "But you're a -"

"Yep." Hawke raised a hand, summoning crystals of ice to her fingertips, freezing the wine left in her glass. "I'm still trying to figure out if he did it out of spite or some deep, very deep urge to protect his apostate sister from within the system. Doesn't matter much. I never hear from him and he just lives across town, with all his memories fully intact, thank you very much."

"I...see."

"I had…" Hawke began, then took a deep breath. "We had a sister, too. Carver's twin. Bethany. She was killed escaping the Blight, and I miss her every day. So…" She sighed. "Maybe I know, a little bit, what it was like for you to lose Leto. But I really, really don't want Fenris to lose you, okay?"

"That's why you stopped him from killing me." Varania's throat tightened, her words flat as she shifted in her chair.

"He'd have regretted it. Maker, he regretted killing Hadriana, and she was poison," Hawke grimaced, glared at her wine glass, then summoned sparks to the liquid again, thawing it just enough to take a sip and grimace as if it were poison too.

"He seemed to have no qualms when he turned on me," Varania bit out, watching Hawke closely.

"He would have regretted it," Hawke repeated. "But look, before this goes any further, I have to know. Are you still a threat to him?"

Varania scoffed. "With Danarius dead?"

"So?" Varric spoke, collecting Hawke's empty glass and setting it on the mantel. "You could be planning to sell him to the next slaver to come along, if you were ready to give him to his old master."

"And what good would that do me?"

"Buy you a ticket back to Minrathous, if nothing else," the dwarf shrugged.

"I am not so mercenary, dwarf," Varania huffed.

"Then why did you betray him in the first place?" Hawke asked, her voice gone as cold as the crystals so recently dancing at her fingertips.

"I had no choice," Varania said, wincing as she realized her words were the echo of those she'd thrown up in defense as Fenris turned on her after the battle, fury in his eyes as their master's corpse lay cooling.

"I could think of several alternatives," Hawke's tone darkened. "Enlighten me as to why they were closed to you."

Varania bristled. "And why must I defend my choices to you?"

Hawke almost rose from the chair, her voice rising: "Because I - Because Fenris is -" She met Varania's gaze for a moment, then threw herself back into the chair, mumbling curses under her breath and crossing her ankles as well as her arms. "Fine. Your reasons are your own and as long as you're not planning to betray him again, I suppose it's none of my business."

Varania blinked in surprise. "Why are you doing this?"

"Interrogating you?" Hawke quirked a smile.

"No, I...that, I quite understand," Varania admitted. "Why do you wish for me to stay? I thought it was clear that my brother was done with me. Why are you so bent on bringing us together again?"

Varric said softly, "Let's just say that it's about time someone got a happy ending around here."

Hawke nodded, spreading her hands. "Fenris was so set on finding you. So excited, though he hated to show it."

Varania lowered her gaze. "And I ruined it."

"Pretty thoroughly," Hawke said with a sheepish grin. "But whatever your reasons, was there ever a moment when you hoped it would work out? That you might see your brother again and everything would be all right?"

"I let my brother go years ago," Varania insisted. But at the disappointment in Hawke's eyes, she confessed, "But...when his letter first came, before Danarius somehow got wind of it and involved himself - I did think it might be...it would be good to see Leto again. If he actually wanted to see me."

"Well," Hawke said, "he did."

Chapter 2: Tell Me Truly

Of course it wasn't as simple as parading through the streets of Hightown, hand in hand with the dwarf and the Champion, to knock on her brother's door and catch him up in an embrace. Varania kept to her room above the tavern for the first day, hesitant to venture out knowing that Hawke and her friends, Fenris included, might show up in the common room at any moment. Her scarcity did not elude Varric's notice; the dwarf knocked on her door at dinnertime to invite her to join him for a meal.

"This is not a trick?" Varania frowned down at him. "If you have Leto waiting for me downstairs, I am certain it is too soon. It will go badly."

"No one's waiting," Varric assured, holding his hands up palm-out the same way he had after bumping into her on the stairs yesterday. "In fact, Hawke's not even here. She's taking dinner over to his place and, well, I'm pretty sure it's not with plans to lure him out. I'm just here to look after my guest. Have you even eaten all day?"

Her stomach did not betray her with a rumble; she had gone without often enough to train it to be undemanding; but something in her face made the dwarf click his tongue and nod knowingly. "Thought so. Come on, then. The meat at the Hanged Man may be a mystery but at least it's filling."

She did not leave the Hanged Man the next day either, though she did dare to sit in the common room for an hour, mending a skirt in light scarcely better than that in her room. Hawke and Varric found her there and conspired to draw her into a game of Wicked Grace, breaking into foreboding grins when she confessed that she had never learned to play.

"That's terrible," Hawke said, widening her eyes in a horror so feigned it almost made Varania smile.

"Unheard of," Varric agreed. "It's high time someone showed you the ropes."

"Need I remind you," said Varania, returning her eyes to her careful stitches, "that I have no money and would be foolish to gamble it if I had."

"Fiddlesticks," Varric retorted with a wave of his hand, producing a deck of cards from where she could not see and beginning to shuffle. "Who said we'd play for coin? I fancy a game of Tell Me Truly."

"Oh, Maker, Varric," Hawke groaned, "not that again!"

"Come on, Hawke, you're as curious as I am."

"Yes, but last time - oh, bother, fine then. Go on." She signaled to the waitress for drinks while Varric began dealing the cards.

Varania looked from one to the other of them suspiciously. "What is this game?"

"Wicked Grace, actually," the dwarf said, "but instead of wagering coin you wager truthfulness. Winner gets to ask the loser any question. The more truth in the pot, the more audacious a question the winner can ask and the more honestly you have to answer."

"That," Varania said, tossing her head in affront, "is ridiculous."

"Yes!" Hawke shouted, so loud that heads turned. Quieter, she continued with a jab of her elbow at the dwarf seated beside her, "See? I'm not the only one, Varric."

Varric chuckled. "Sore loser. And I promised that story would stay out of the book."

"What story?" Varania asked, blinking at them innocently.

Hawke exchanged a panicked glance with the dwarf. Varric's grin widened as he turned back to Varania. "You want to hear the story, elf, you're going to have to win a round."

She didn't win the first round, but she did have sense enough to keep the theoretical "pot of truthfulness" small while she was learning to play this game. Being symbolic in nature, without actual tokens of any sort to help keep track of their wagers, the actual level of truthfulness called for was the first thing to come into question.

"I do not have to answer in such detail," Varania protested with a pert tilt of her chin. "I only count seventeen 'truths' or, er, whatever you are calling them. That hardly accounts for such an impertinent question. Ask me something else."

Hawke laughed. "She's got you there, Varric. Seventeen's a generous estimate, really. I had it at fourteen."

"Come on, Hawke, you're sharper than that." Varric raised an eyebrow and glanced at her sidelong. "Unless of course something's on your mind today. Care to share your distractions, Champion?"

Varania took note of the faint blush as Hawke turned horrified wide eyes on the dwarf. "Excuse you, Messere Tethras," Hawke blustered, "but Varania's the one you're supposed to be questioning!"

"At the rate of only seventeen truth-tokens. All right, fine. Tell us, elf, where'd you learn to sew like that?" He nodded at the half-mended skirt now piled in her lap.

She glanced down, running a finger over the line of tiny stitches she'd been working on when they arrived. "Mother was always sewing. She -" Varania looked up, not to meet anyone's eyes but just to stare at their hands, Varric's shuffling the cards again, Hawke's resting, fingers linked, on the edge of the table. "I learned from her as a girl. She said that if I could provide such a skill I might avoid...less desirable tasks in the master's household."

"Oh," said Hawke, subdued.

"She used to take in mending, Mother told me, before she was a slave. To make ends meet." Her gaze hardened as she looked up to meet Hawke's eyes. "Curious that even as liberati, in Tevinter where magic is prized, we could not get by on my magic alone. Nor on more mundane work. She took in mending nearly till the day she died. At least till she grew too sick to hold the needle any longer."

"I'm sorry," said Hawke gently. "Was she...has she been gone long?"

Varania stiffened.

Hawke didn't miss the elf's reluctance. "It's fine," she said, waving the question away. "You don't have to answer. Only seventeen tokens, and all that."

Varania blinked down at the imaginary pot of truthfulness. "Well then," she finally answered. "Ask me again when you've won a hand, Hawke."

"Last round for me," Hawke announced many hands later. "I'm meeting Fenris after this for dinner."

Varania watched out of the corner of her eye, making a show of studying her cards, as Varric fixed a canny eye on his friend. "Again, huh?"

"What?" Hawke frowned at the dwarf. "It's only two nights in a row. And also, it is none of your business."

"Oh, you know that's the kind of business I like best," Varric grinned.

"Well then," Hawke said with a smug arch of an eyebrow, "it's just as well that this just turned up." She discarded, with a flair, the Angel of Death. "Game over. Do your worst, Varric, and then I take my leave."

"Two Swords," Varric grumbled, laying down his own cards. "Best I've got. You couldn't have held onto that card a little longer, Hawke?"

"Not according to the rules," she smiled innocently.

"Since when is Wicked Grace about rules?" Varric chuckled as Hawke laid down her own hand. "Well, at least I've beat you. Not a single match. Elf? What've you got?"

Varania laid down her cards slowly. "Three Songs, if you please."

"Well, I'll be," Varric said with a low whistle. "It's not much, but you've got the advantage." He glanced at Hawke and then grinned and winked at Varania. "I say you press it."

"Hawke," asked Varania slowly, eyes fixed on the Champion, taking in Hawke's fidgeting and sudden blush, "are you...involved with my brother?"

Hawke's blush deepened as she turned to Varric with a strangled sound. "Maker, Varric, you set me up! I thought you were just trying to get Varania to talk, and now you've got her asking me about this?"

Varric gestured at the imaginary pile of tokens between them. "Forty-two truth-tokens by my count, Hawke. That sound right to you, elf?"

"Oh, at least that," Varania said sweetly.

"It's a fair question, Hawke, for forty-two tokens."

"Andraste's ass it is!" But the Champion's mouth turned up at the corners when she averted her gaze from the others.

"Hey now, Hawke. You know I wouldn't pry if I thought...well, there's been a certain...relaxing of the awkwardness lately, you know? About time, too. You've been making eyes at each other for years."

"We have n-" Hawke burst out, until Varania cleared her throat and inclined her head toward the imaginary tokens. "Oh," Hawke sighed, "very well. There may have been eyes." She grinned over at Varric. "Merrill was right about the puppy eyes, you know. I caught him at it a few times."

"Everyone in proximity caught him at it, Hawke. Not that you were any more subtle."

"I was giving him space!"

"Well, something seems to have blossomed in all that space," Varric grinned.

"Excuse me," Varania broke in. "Since the question was mine, after all. How long, exactly…"

And now Hawke grew still, her eyes fixed on something as far away as memory. "Officially, I suppose, only since last night," she said, her voice soft, barely audible in the bustle of the tavern. "We had a...a false start, to be honest, a few years ago. It was too soon."

"None too soon now, I take it," Varric said kindly, without a trace of the teasing tone he usually adopted.

"Oh no," Hawke murmured. "Now, it's just right." Then, like one regaining her senses from a daze, she turned to Varric with a put-upon look. "And since that," she said, "is surely forty-two tokens worth and then some, I bid you good night, messeres. I'm off to see an elf."

She left with a jaunty smile and Varric's laughter trailing her out the door, and as the dwarf returned to shuffling the deck, Varania watched the Champion go and marveled at her destination.

Could her brother truly be the cruel monster she had taken him for, if the mere mention of him could make this fierce and determined Champion go to pieces - such blushing, happy pieces?

Chapter 3: Grace for the Wicked

Varania's card game improved, along with her comfort with these strangers who had taken her under their wing, as they continued to meet in the common room each evening. It wasn't always Tell Me Truly, but it was always Wicked Grace: for coin, once, when Varric insisted on loaning her a purse to play with; for buttons from her sewing kit, another time. She met others in the Champion's circle as well, wandering in one or two at a time each night, never the whole group at once. The Dalish mage was the first to show up, beaming with eagerness to meet this legendary sister and bearing freshly baked muffins along with her smile. Merrill was annoying in her naive curiosity and clannish superiority, yet endearingly sweet and thoughtful at the same time. More annoying was the other mage, Anders, who pressed her for details about Tevinter's customs regarding mages (little enough she could say, having just failed in her gamble to be trained by one) and seemed to make even his friends around the table uncomfortable. The pirate made Varania uncomfortable, all innuendo and inappropriate questions and far too many knives and cleverly hidden cards, and that made Varania bristle and snap retorts back every time Isabela addressed her. And that only made Isabela even more relentless. The guard-captain and her husband were a breath of fresh air in contrast to the rest of their friends, even if Aveline, who had joined Hawke and Varric in backing up Fenris in the fight against his old master, only very gradually set aside the evident suspicion with which she so carefully watched Varania at the start of that night's game. Kinder and more gracious was the Chantry brother who joined them only briefly one night, though Varania scoffed at Sebastian's offer to hear her confession if her part in Danarius' trap were weighing on her soul.

The days passed quickly until one afternoon, Hawke pulled up a seat next to Varania and announced, her hands aflutter at the edge of the table, "So. Tonight's Wicked Grace night."

Varania looked at her incredulously. "But we've played that every night this week."

"Yes," Hawke acknowledged. "But tonight is our regular Wicked Grace night. When everyone joins the game. Including…"

"Ah." Varania frowned and pushed away from the table. "You intend to have this out tonight."

"Have it out?" Hawke echoed with a crooked grin. "I'm amazed sometimes, Varania, how strongly pessimism runs in your family. Look at it as an opportunity!"

"Have you convinced him to look at it as an opportunity?"

"I'm, ah...still working out how to break the news to him, actually."

Varania's eyes widened. "You haven't told him I'm here?"

"Look, he's been dealing with finally killing his old master and...and we've had other things to, um, talk about, too. I'm going to tell him before the game tonight, I just haven't had a decent opportunity to explain yet."

"I suppose you could always not tell him. Make it a surprise."

"Oh, the thought has crossed my mind," Hawke grinned. "Frequently. But it wouldn't be fair to him. To either of you, really. I'll tell him. Early enough to give him time to warm up to the idea, if need be. But I'll make sure he's here tonight, one way or another."

Varania sighed. "At least we can finally get it over with. If he wants nothing to do with me, then I'll know and I can go home and forget this ever happened."

"There's been enough forgetting already," Hawke said, grasping Varania's hand. "Forgetting is what we're trying to counteract, here."

Varania looked up at her. "He really remembers nothing before the markings?"

"Mostly," Hawke nodded. "Nothing at first. Some of it has come back over time - he recognized you the other night, remember? And my housekeeper makes anise cakes that reminded him once of your mother's."

"Oh?" Varania smiled. "I shall have to meet this housekeeper. I remember Mother's anise cakes well, too."

Hawke chuckled. "Of course. You're practically one of the family, you know." She blushed. "Um, please don't take that wrong. Fenris and I are - it's - well, still very new and -"

"To hear the dwarf talk one would think you were practically engaged."

"Still very new!" Hawke insisted. "But Varania, whatever happens between you and your brother tonight, it's been good, getting to know you. We're hoping for the best, Varric and I."

To her surprise, Varania felt the Champion's warm, bright hope infecting her own heart as well. Whatever her brother had become since he was taken from her, the company he kept spoke well for the man he was now. "So am I, Hawke," she murmured. "So am I."

The others all arrived early. Varania surmised that Hawke's planned peace talks were common knowledge in the group, and none of the Champion's friends wished to miss out on the drama about to unfold. She sighed and hunched down in her chair, focusing on the fabric she had brought along, centering herself in the stitches while the others laughed and swore and drank and shuffled cards. Merrill complimented the fabric and her neat stitches, rambling from the seat to her right in a way that was growing comfortable to Varania. She let the other elf run the silk through her fingers and ask her a hundred questions about the project, all easily answered in a few words that deflected the conversation back to Merrill's own unendingly verbalized thoughts. Varania smiled faintly and kept her own thoughts to herself.

Isabela arrived, swaggering around the table to snatch a tankard straight from Anders' hands while the mage was regaling Varric with some tale about his days as a Warden. Eying Varania, she continued her trajectory toward the empty seat to her left. Varania stiffened, less keen on the pirate's direct approach to the most embarrassing questions than on Merrill's rambling, but before Isabela could reach the chair, Varania heard the scrape of its movement and glanced to her left to see Sebastian occupying it. "A momentous night, no?" he greeted her with a smile.

Relieved, at least a little, as Isabela claimed the chair to Merrill's other side instead and for a moment the Dalish elf turned her attention away from Varania, she let herself smile back. "One way or another," she said, and he laughed.

"It will work out," he assured her. "It's none too late to make amends."

"My brother," she reminded him, "was prepared to kill me less than a week ago."

"The day before that," he replied, "he was prepared to welcome you back into his life. I don't think he has given up on that hope as fully as you expect."

Whatever reply she could have made was cut off by the sudden silence at the table as all heads turned to watch Hawke and Fenris approach. He stilled when he saw Varania at the end of the table. She swallowed once but met his gaze, unsmiling. Then Hawke, tugging at his hand, broke the moment and they took their seats at the other end.

"About time you got here!" Varric said: too loudly, too brightly, she thought. "You know how Rivaini is: longer we take to start the game, the more cards she'll have tucked away for emergencies."

Isabela's gleefully offended response was lost to the rushing in Varania's ears as Fenris met her eyes again, only to look away quickly, studying the cards Donnic was beginning to deal. Did she imagine a flush to his ears? Or was that only because of Hawke, leaning close to whisper in them? Fenris nodded; his eyes flicked to his sister's again, but only for a moment. Varania sighed and resumed her stitching until the cards had all been dealt. At least he seemed to have shed the rage in which he had faced her last.

Very well, then. She had saved up for years the things she'd wanted to say to him. If Leto was going to spend the evening avoiding her, barely acknowledging her, she could save them up a little longer. Squaring her shoulders, she picked up her cards, smiled at something Merrill said, and joined in the game.

Hours later, as the card game wound down and people began to drift away, Varania had still not exchanged more then ten words with her brother, and those across the table in the polite manner of strangers newly met.

Which, in a sense, they were.

Merrill, departing more than a little tipsy, bid her goodnight with a sudden embrace, startling Varania stiff for a moment, careful not to move with her needlework still in her lap. A mild chuckle to her left drew her eyes up to see Sebastian pushing his chair back and standing to offer her a slight bow. "Varania, it was lovely to see you again, but I must take my leave. I believe this seat is required."

Confused, she frowned as the man winked and withdrew - and Fenris, standing behind him, stepped up to claim the chair.

"Varania," he began, his voice rough, his gaze to the table in front of her.

She went very still. "Brother."

"I have - that is," he said, shifting as he pulled the seat nearer the table, "Hawke thinks I have been ignoring you."

Surprise burst from her in a laugh, quick and short, drawing his eyes up to her face briefly. "Hawke is a sensible woman. You should take care to keep her around."

"I suppose I should." His lips quirked into the ghost of a smile, just barely. "She insisted that I be here tonight."

"I understand if you do not wish to," she answered primly. "You spared my life the last time we met. I thank you for that. If you do not wish to see me again I -"

"That is not my intention," he snarled, and then sighed when she drew back. "Varania. Why did you stay?" Not, she noted, why did you come? Or why did you betray me? But why remain after the moment of hope seemed to have passed?

She studied his face a moment: green eyes avoiding hers again; their mother's lips and nose; the elegant ears hidden by white hair like the afterimage behind one's eyes of the dark hair on the boy she remembered. Leto, neat and disciplined, had always worn it shorter than this. Now it was like a curtain behind which he hid his true self from her.

"I did not expect to find you," she admitted at last. "But since I did, I stayed to know…" She dropped her eyes to her needlework, taking several quick, fierce stitches. "Hawke thinks it is not too late."

"Too late?"

"You wanted to kill me, Leto. I betrayed you. I was sure that was the end of it."

He shook his head, slipping a hand through the white hair. "I...apologize. Danarius was the threat; when he was dealt with, I should not have turned on you."

"Then you no longer want me dead?"

"Should I?" He looked her over carefully. "Perhaps you are a threat. I cannot understand why you would side with him."

She nodded, bracing herself with the explanations that she'd spent the week preparing - and hating. "You were dead to me, Leto. Your letter...I couldn't believe it was really you. I couldn't let myself believe my brother - that you still existed. You abandoned us for those markings years ago. It was all we could do to survive as liberati. When my magic manifested I thought that would save us, but..." She shook her head. "The magister I served then would not hear of an incaensor among his hirelings and turned us out to fend for ourselves. And then Mother died, and when your letter came and Danarius somehow heard of it and came to me demanding my help getting you back…I could see no other way out. He promised me training that I sorely need, and it seemed no loss to return you to him if you were not really my brother."

He quirked an eyebrow. "And since I am?"

"Are you?" She glanced at his hands, lined with lyrium. "You don't even remember your name. You barely look like Leto."

"I have forgotten far more than names," he said with a bitter laugh. "If you were expecting to find me unchanged, still Leto, perhaps you should not have stayed."

"Perhaps not!" she said, her fists clenching at the fabric in her lap. Was that it, then? She should be grateful that at least he had spoken civilly to her tonight. She would be grateful, and go.

Except that his hand came to rest on hers, and he looked her in the eye again. "Perhaps I am not the only one changed by the years, sister."

She frowned. "Me?"

"I remember little of you," he admitted. "I thought meeting you again, reconnecting with my past, would bring a sense of belonging, but…"

"But?"

He glanced across the table, where Hawke sat talking with Varric. Across the room, Isabela jabbed a finger erratically at Aveline, underscoring some point she was trying to make, while the Guard Captain crossed her arms and shook her head and her husband stood hiding a smile behind his hand. Merrill, Sebastian, Anders had already all departed, yet their presence too seemed implied in the gaze Fenris swept across the room, taking them all in, the friends he had made in his freedom. "But," he continued at last, "the past was not the place to find that. Whatever you and I were in the past, Varania, I...would like to get to know you as you are now."

She let his words sink in slowly, and finally nodded, turning her hand to meet his palm to palm. "I'm sorry I led him here, Leto. Fenris. I shall have to get used to calling you that."

He squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry for abandoning you. I should never have sought these markings."

"I suppose you meant well," she allowed, withdrawing her hand from his to pick up her needle again. "You really were bull-headed about it at the time, though. Mother hated the thought that we would go free without you. I thought that at least we would be free, but...it was not worth it." Finishing a row of stitches, she anchored the thread and bit the tail free. "But perhaps you're right. The past is not what matters." She nudged him gently. "Stand up."

"What?"

"Go on, stand. Turn around. I want to see how this'll fit - oh! Yes, that's just about right."

He twisted to peer over his shoulder, nose scrunched as he tried to see what she was doing. "Fit?"

"You can try it on if you want." She handed him the garment she'd been stitching, smiling faintly as his eyes widened and he took it from her. He spread his hands and shook the fabric out, a tunic of a red as deep as the ribbon tied at his wrist, with delicate golden leaves embroidered along the cuffs and collar.

"This is…" he gawked at her. "You made this for me?"

"Obviously." She crossed her arms, torn between enjoying his surprise and wishing to have the moment over with.

"It's very fine work."

"I should say so. I am a professional, Fenris." She smiled a little, reaching out to run a hand over the red silk. "And since it's been years since I had a chance to sew for you..."

"How did you know what size to make it?"

"Hawke." Varania smirked. "She took your measurements for me. From a spare tunic, I presume. Or while you were sleeping."

His ears definitely flushed, this time. "I...see. You started it after...our last meeting, then."

She tilted her head. "I work fast."

His eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't have made this if you expected the worst tonight. Is this some sort of peace offering?"

"I am not trying to buy your forgiveness! It is only a gift, only to say that I am sorry. I'm sorry I was not strong enough to turn the magister down."

"He's dead now."

"Oh, yes, I had noticed."

"We're both free, Varania."

"Took us long enough," she said, and smiled as she reached out to squeeze his arm.