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“Go to Kirkwall,” the human had ordered. Hawke, her new Master. Go to Kirkwall and find Master Hawke’s house and wait. And so she went, but not before she heard the runaway, Fenris, snarl, “I didn’t know you were in the market for a slave.” Master Hawke said in reply something about a job, about pay, but surely that was about something else. What Master would ever pay a slave?
She cringed at every noise, heart leaping in her throat at every shadow as she made her way through the caverns, just wanting out, away from the smells and sounds of death. Just near the entrance, she paused and spared a moment to wipe Poppa’s face clean of the blood, to close his eyes and kiss him on the forehead. “Rest now, Poppa,” she whispered. “I wish...” but then left it unspoken. Wishes were for children, wishes were foolish. Wishes would not bring her Poppa back or send them home.
“Kirkwall,” she said, as she stepped from the dark and into the light of the coast.
*
The dwarf who answered her timid knock had tried to shoo her off, even though she went to the servant’s entrance. She was sure she looked less than respectable; her feet bleeding from the rocks on the coast, her hands still bearing traces of her Poppa’s blood, her eyes swollen and scratchy and probably red from crying. Nevertheless. With her gaze fixed firmly on her feet, her head bowed, she said, “Please, ser. Master Hawke told me to come here and wait. I can stay out here, if it pleases ser.”
“What’s going on, Bodahn?” A soft, female voice.
“An elf, Mistress Leandra. Says your boy, I mean, Master Hawke, sent her here.”
“She’s bleeding. We can’t leave her out on the doorstep and I’m sure Garrett has his reasons. Come in, child.”
“Thank you, Mistress,” Orana whispered, feeling tears of relief nearly close her throat. Kirkwall was large and cold and it had taken her so long to find anyone who would tell her where Master’s home was that she’d despaired of ever getting there.
Mistress directed her to sit on a stool, then had the dwarf bring a basin of warm water. When Mistress knelt at her feet, her intention became suddenly clear and Orana froze. A slave never told a Master of Mistress “No” but neither did a Master or Mistress bathe a slave. “Please, Mistress, I can do that myself.”
“I’m sure you can, when you’re not drooping with exhaustion,” Mistress said firmly. “Now, put your feet in the water like a good girl and let me clean these wounds. Bodahn.”
“Milady?”
“If you could prepare something to eat, then ready the small room next to mine.”
“Right away, milady.”
Orana held her breath when her feet touched the water, locked her jaw and bore the pain while Mistress cleaned, then dressed the wounds. She tried to keep her eyes averted, but it was difficult when Mistress was exactly where her gaze had been conditioned to go.
“Why won’t you look at me, child?”
“It is rude and impertinent,” Orana said softly.
“In this house, we look at the people we’re conversing with. Can you do that?” And while it was phrased as a gentle question, it also had an unmistakable tone of command, so Orana slowly lifted her eyes. Mistress had a kind face and clear hazel eyes, the same eyes as Master Hawke. A smile of approval curved her lips as she said, “Good girl. Now, will you give me your name?”
“Orana.”
“A very pretty name. Now, tell me Orana, why has my son sent you here?”
“He found me before going to battle my...Mistress Hadriana,” she whispered, grief suddenly welling up fresh and sharp. Blinking back tears, she continued, “My Poppa is dead and now Mistress Hadriana is too and I can’t go home.”
Mistress sat in silence, a frown drawing her fine brows together, then said as her face smoothed into compassion, “I’m sorry, child. Go ahead and cry, it’s all right.”
Orana ducked her head, scrubbed at her eyes, then said, “Thank you, Mistress, but I am fine now.”
With another frown, Mistress stood, sighed, then said, “Then let us see what Bodahn has prepared for you. When you’re done eating, he’ll show you your room.”
There was only one place set at the kitchen table and Orana hesitantly sat. Bodahn said, “I wasn’t sure of what you’d be hungry for, so I figured a little of everything wouldn’t go amiss. Go on, dig in.”
There was a half a cold chicken, a loaf of bread, a wheel of white cheese, a bowl of fruit and... “Greens,” Orana said in wonder.
“Wondered if you might like them,” Bodahn said with an air of satisfaction. “My Warden was mad for them, but then again, they were the only things that managed to escape Alistair’s stew pot, so it’s no wonder. But what with her being an elf like yourself, I thought perhaps you’d have a taste for them as well.”
“I...it is allowed?” she asked hesitantly.
“Of course. There’s plenty. Master Hawke calls ‘em rabbit food, but Mistress insists on having a fresh supply on hand so he’ll have something nutritious, or so she says. Never developed a fondness for them myself, but then I suppose we all have different tastes.”
Orana piled a small amount on her plate along with some grapes, and then made herself eat some of the chicken and bread before she allowed herself to take a bite of the leafy greens. When her plate was empty, Bodahn offered her more, but she shook her head.
“Well, if you get hungry again, you just come help yourself,” he said and then added, “Something wrong?” when she shook her head again. How could she possibly explain to him that while Hadriana fed them well, even allowing them to sometimes have what was left over of Poppa’s meals, fresh fruit and greens were not for slaves.
She winced a little when she got to her feet, and Bodahn said, “Let me show you where you can lie down. You’ll want to let those heal in peace. Nothing worse than a foot wound, they always say, but since they are usually soldiers, I suppose can see why. Can’t be marching about the countryside with festering, inflamed feet.”
He ushered her though the main room, where another dwarf wrestled in front of the fire with a large dog - “My boy Sandal,” Bodahn said. “You can meet him later.” - then up a flight of stairs and into a small room. It looked like it had only recently been aired, but the clean white coverlet on the bed smelled fresh, as did what looked like a hastily picked bouquet of flowers on the small nightstand.
“You lie down and rest now,” Bodahn said.
“Isn’t there something I should do?” she asked.
“I’m sure Master Hawke will apprise you of your duties when he comes back,” Bodahn said. “For now you should stay off your feet,” he added as he left the room.
And so she pulled the coverlet to the foot of the bed so as not to get it dirty, and lay down and waited. So quiet, so unlike home where there was always noise, be it from a party, the chatter of servants, the calls of the street vendors, the low cries from the slave markets. Here the silence of the house was like a blanket, muffling everything but the sound of her pulse beating in her ears. It was only then that she realized, truly realized, that she was alone and would never see her home again. This time the tears refused to be blinked back, and so she let them come, crying silently as she’d been taught, the only sound the occasional hitch in her breath. With her face still wet, she fell toward sleep.
What woke her, she couldn’t say, but her first muddled thought was that she’d overslept and Mistress Hadriana would be livid if her bath was not properly heated. She bolted out of bed and was half way across the landing before she realized it was still night and remembered Mistress Haidriana was dead.
A curse from the room across the hall made her jump, the word muffled by the closed door, but the emotion behind it clear as it was followed by another angry sound and then a thump, as if a body had hit the wall. That was, she remembered, Master’s room.
She froze, torn by conflicting urges; run and hide or go find help? She held her breath, swallowed and then steeled herself to at least open the door and see -maybe he was in his cups and had fallen- when another sound stopped her from turning the handle. A low groan, followed by “Hawke.” The runaway slave. Fenris. Then Master’s voice, low and urgent, saying, “Fenris, let me, please, love, let me just...” And Fenris’s voice a husky, “Yes.”
Hands shaking at how close she’d come to making a disastrous mistake, Orana backed across the landing and into her room. She lay back down, despite knowing she would not sleep again and heard, much later, the soft click of Master’s door opening and then Master’s voice sounding almost broken when he asked Fenris to stay, then his quiet cursing when he was alone.
The next morning, she had just finished sweeping the front entry when the Master approached her. She bobbed a courtesy, and said, “I have cleaned the kitchen and dining room, and breakfast is on the sideboard, if it please you, Master.”
He frowned, and she held her breath. Had she offended by acting without orders? She twisted her hands together and waited to be chastised, and didn’t think she’d heard correctly when he sighed and said, “Orana. You are not a slave here. You are a servant, if you wish it, or free to go, if you would prefer.”
Go? “I do not understand,” she said softly. He wouldn’t send her away, would he?
“Here,” he said. “Hold out your hand.”
She obediently held up her hand, and he dropped several silvers and one sovereign into the palm. “This is your pay, in advance. Or, for passage back to the Imperium, if you don’t mind steerage. It’s up to you.”
Back to the Imperium. To the sounds and the smells and the world that she knew, but...”I do not have a home there any longer,” she said sadly. “And I don’t know what my next Master would be like. And you saved me. I would stay, if I may.”
“Then we would be pleased to have you,” he said with a smile that curved his generous mouth, but didn’t reach all the way to his eyes. Those remained heavy and dull, as if he hadn’t slept.
She looked down, uncomfortable with meeting his gaze, and said, “Thank you, Master. What would you have me do?”
He frowned a little when the Mistress came into the room and said, dryly, “Yes, Master, what will you have her do?”
“It’s rather early in the morning for innuendo, especially from my own mother,” he said, his voice a little sharp.
“I’m sorry, Garrett,” she said with a kiss on the cheek. “And I’m sorry, Orana, to tease you as well. I would like to know, however, what role she’ll play in this house.”
“I thought cooking and cleaning,” he said.
“Doesn’t Bodahn already take care of that?”
“I’m sure he can use help. And you wanted a maid, didn’t you? Someone to help you with your dresses and makeup and hair and all that woman stuff.”
“Spoken like a true bachelor,” Mistress said with a fondly amused look. “I’d thought to start looking for a suitable match for you, but now I wonder if there’s any girl out there who’d appreciate your particular insight into the feminine mystique.”
Master flinched at that, but Mistress had already turned toward the dining room, saying, “If the breakfast in here tastes as good as it smells, Bodahn may truly have more time to devote to cleaning.”
“It would be my pleasure, milady,” Bodahn said.
*
In Minrathous, Orana had marked the passing of time by her chores; morning bath, Mistress’s toilette, laundry, shopping, cooking, washing, sweeping, there was always something. Here, time passed differently.
In the first week, Mistress had presented her with new clothing and soft, velvet slippers. The next month, she found a lute on her bed, “From Master Hawke,” Bodahn said. “Said he saw you looking at them last time he went with you to market.” When she discovered Sandal’s fondness for sweets, she made special, tiny cakes, just for him. In return, he gave her small, enchanted items; polished stones that glowed in the dark, a delicate shell that softly chimed when touched, a filigreed ring that did nothing, so far as she could tell, and when asked, Sandal merely said, “Enchantment.” The dog gave her slobbering kisses and Bodahn gave her stories about his Gray Warden.
“...and she just ran right up and sliced his head clean off, can you believe it? Little tiny thing, no bigger than yourself. Gave me the horrors, I can tell you that.”
And slowly, if not Kirkwall itself, at least this house began to feel like home.
The morning was like any other; she’d made breakfast and put an extra few strips of bacon onto Master’s plate, so he could slip them to the dog under the table and everyone could pretend to not notice.
Fenris had stopped by and politely declined to eat, but sat at the table and waited for Master to finish. She’d tried not to listen after that first night -it wasn’t proper to know too much about a Master’s private affairs- so she didn’t know if there had ever been a repeat of his visit. She rather doubted it. Master would smile, but it never truly reached his eyes and Fenris shied away from even the possibility of contact if Master was next to him. Each time, Master’s eyes would shutter and he’d become distant and polite, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he hurt.
After they’d left, a conspicuous distance between them, there was a knock on the front door. Orana opened it, tsked when she saw the flowers and looked for the delivery person, who should be well aware all deliveries went to the side entrance. She frowned when there was no one who looked like a possible culprit, then sighed, picked them up and carried them in where Mistress lingered over breakfast.
“White lilies. How lovely,” Mistress said. “Is there a card?”
“No, Mistress, I’m sorry.”
“How mysterious,” Mistress said with a smile. “But flattering if they’re truly for me. It would be nice to think I’m not too old to be courted.”
She repeated the conversation back to Master when he came home and discovered Mistress had never arrived at Master Gamlen’s house for her weekly visit. His face drained of all color and his hands flexed on his staff, and for the first time ever, Orana felt the charge of his magic fill the air, making it heavy and thick.
“Stop that right now,” Master Gamlen had cried. “Indulge in your magical hysterics after we find your mother.”
Except he did not. When Master came back in the gray hours of early morning, his face was like a mask, his voice harsh but steady when he asked for a fire to be lit in the study, for Master Gamlen to be called.
“Mistress,” Orana began hesitantly, already dreading the answer to her unspoken question.
“Gone,” Master said shortly. “I’m sorry, Orana, but please leave me be. Send my uncle in when he arrives.”
Master Gamlen rushed into the study with a cry of, “Leandra?” that was followed by, “Garrett, where is your mother?” In the main entry, Orana sat on the bench and flinched at every shout that followed, every curse. Master’s voice was dull in response to each accusation, even when saying, “It was my fault.”
When Master Gamlen reeled out, Orana stayed on the bench, waiting. It was very late, but she wouldn’t go to bed until Master retired lest he need something, although, she doubted very much there was anything she could do that would comfort him.
The door opened on a quiet snick, and at first Orana thought Master Gamlen simply hadn’t closed it and the wind was responsible, then a dark figure slipped in. She stood, then paused at the white shock of hair. Fenris. He gave her a quick glance, then cocked his head at the settling of the logs in the study fire. He strode past her, hesitated at the study door, then closed it behind him.
They dressed the house in mourning; black curtains over the windows, black banners over the doors. Letters of condolence were left unopened on the desk and Master locked the door to Mistress’s room. “I don’t want anyone to go in there, you hear me,” he’d said to Bodahn, then repeated the same to her with a hard stare. “I want it left alone.”
“It’s not healthy,” Bodahn said once Master had left, “but I suppose we all need to grieve in our own ways.”
“I miss Leandra,” Sandal said sadly.
“As do we all, boy. As do we all.”
For the first time in a long while, the quiet of the house felt oppressive again. Mistress hadn’t been one for formal entertaining, but she’d had a steady flow of visitors, enough to keep Orana busy in the kitchen even between meals. Now, Master was rarely home and the house felt vast in its silence. One morning, Orana found herself setting the table for two out of habit and nearly wept in relief when she remembered Master was gone this week running some sort of job for that dwarf, Varric. He was supposed to be back that day, so she cleared the table and set to cleaning the house with a vengance.
Maybe, she thought, maybe we’re at fault. Maybe we’re driving him away by being so sad. If the house is clean and cheerful, and we’re happy and smiling, maybe he’ll be able to feel like this is home again.
With that in mind, she picked fresh flowers from the garden, some white dittany and lavender, and arranged them in a vase by his bed. She was just smoothing a fresh coverlet over his pillow when she heard the bedroom door open behind her. She turned with a smile, saying, “Welcome home, Master” just as Fenris entered the room and said, “Hawke, I-”
His mouth closed with a snap and his gaze went from the flowers, to her simple summer shift, to her hand on the bed and his eyes narrowed. “Tell me,” he said in a voice that was almost a growl, “is this one of your duties?”
Confused, she nevertheless answered, “Yes.”
The room flared a brilliant blue as his hands clenched and he stared at her with death in his eyes. “How long?” he asked from between teeth clenched in a snarl.
“”I’m sorry, I don’t know what you-”
“How long has this been going on?” He stalked toward her, the glow pulsating like a living, angry thing, and spat out, “Did he even wait a week? A day?”
“I’ve been making the beds since I came here,” Orana said wretchedly, knowing she’d given offense but not knowing how. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was bad.”
And Fenris stopped, the violent blue winking out like the snuffing of a candle. He closed his eyes, inhaled and said in a harsh voice, “You have caused no offense. You have done nothing bad. Please, do not be frightened.” When he opened his eyes, his lips twisted in a bitter smile, and he continued, “Whereas I have caused many offenses and am a fool, multiple times over. Forgive me.”
When she gave a hesitant nod, he said, “I will come back another time. You needn’t let Hawke know I was here.”
When Master returned home hours later, he ignored the mail and went straight to his room to bathe and change. After coming down for a late supper, he asked as Orana served him, “Did you put the flowers in my room?”
“Yes, Master.”
“They were the first thing mother planted when we moved in here,” he said. “She loved their scent.”
Worried that she’d done the wrong thing Orana frowned, but he smiled, a genuine smile this time, and said, “Thank you. It was comforting, almost like she was there with me in spirit.”
It pleased her so much to see him happy, if just for the moment, that decided she would not tell him about Fenris’s puzzling visit and risk ruining it.
*
Orana was in the market when she heard the first scream. Screaming was not completely uncommon in Kirkwall, but generally stayed in Lowtown or below, so she set the fish she’d been debating on back on its bed of ice and listened. Another scream, and with it, a hint of smoke on the breeze.
She looked at Sandal, who’d stiffened at the same time she had. When he said, “Boom?” she nodded and said, “Leave the basket, we’ll be faster without it.”
They ran, holding hands like children, and Orana was glad of it when the first waves of pitch smoke turned the world black. She coughed and wheezed, then was jerked down on the ground where Sandal’s bright eye was the only thing visible were the smoke thinned. “Crawl,” he said and she nodded, clinging to the cuff of his pantleg, hoping he knew where they were going. They emerged from the smoke near the stairs leading back to the manor and pressed against the wall when a Qunari strode by them, a struggling noble over his shoulder. The Qunari stared at them, a hard, evaluating look, then continued on, apparently deeming them unworthy of his attention.
Sandal tugged at her hand. “Run?” he suggested and Orana said, “Yes. All the way home, if we can.”
Bodahn met them at the front door with a hug for Sandal, then one for her as well. “Thank the Maker you’re both all right,” he exclaimed. “People were shouting about the Qunari attacking and kidnapping people and I was so worried.”
“Where is Master?” Orana asked.
Bodahn shook his head. “Not here, Maker help him. Guard Captain Aveline wanted him to accompany her to a meeting with that Arishok fellow down by the docks. That was this morning and now this.” He looked at Orana with freshly drawn worry on his face. “They know where he lives. They have to know. What if they come here?”
The walls shook as an explosion hit.
“That was close,” Bodahn said. “I reckon the Keep or the Chantry. Maker preserve us and keep us,” he muttered. “And we had best help Him do so,” he continued. “Sandal, bar the doors and get some of those salamanders you’ve been hiding from me. We might need them.”
“Enchantment!”
“And me?” Orana asked.
“You know how to use a bow? A sword? A dagger?” He sighed. “I thought not.”
“I can make traps,” she said. “Mistress Hadrianna would have me put some down for burglars.”
“Can you make some with what we have here?”
“Of course.”
“Show the dog where you put them,” he said. “Master Hawke would be cross if he came back to a three legged war hound.” When the dog whined, Bodahn said, “Yes, I’m sure you’d dislike it too.”
With the doors barred and the traps laid, there was nothing else to do but wait. The screams died down, the explosions stopped and the smoke thinned. And still they waited. Orana leaned against Sandal for comfort as the sky grew dark and still no one came, friend or enemy. When she’d decided it had been too long and the worst must have happened and felt near tears, there was a scraping, then a rap at the door.
“Bodahn,” came Master’s exhausted sounding voice, “for some reason my key doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Just a moment, messer,” Bodahn called, relief clear in his voice. “I’m coming to unbar the door. Just as soon as we disarm all these traps. Oh bugger it, I set one off. Ow.”
*
Time eventually moved back into a normal rhythm. There was cooking, there was shopping, there was cleaning and all the small moments in between; Sandal’s delight in a treat, Bodahn’s quiet humming as he cleaned a weapon, the dog’s bounding happiness when let into the garden for a romp, a quiet word of thanks from the Master when she did something well. All these things were part of a now normal routine and it surprised her, sometimes, at how content she was.
As the city rebuilt, Orana wondered at her Master’s role. The Champion of Kirkwall, they called him, and she wondered how many people saw him as the person on that horrible statue down by the docks, the one of her Master with his foot cruelly planted on a Qunari head. At least his friends did not, she knew. They teased him and joked with him and made him laugh even when he was angry with them sometimes. They wouldn’t let him be lonely, she thought, and was glad of them, even when they worried her. Anders in particular seemed worrisome lately, sharing in the laughing and joking one minute, closed off and moody the next. But there was nothing she could do, nothing she could say. She was, after all, just a servant and could only watch and worry as the lines on his face grew deeper, the fever in his eyes brighter. She knew her Master worried as well, knew they had fought about something, had overheard her Master shouting, “I don’t believe for one bloody minute that drake stone goes into any sort of bloody potion!” before Anders had stormed off.
But at least something had changed with Fenris. She didn’t know what, only that after word of a battle at the Hanged Man with his former Master, she’d heard another thump in her Master’s room, then urgently muttered words, followed by long, heartfelt groans. Her face burning, she turned to the wall and pulled the pillow over her head when the bedsprings started creaking.
In the morning, her Master came downstairs and saw two places set for breakfast. He looked at Orana’s face, coughed and said, “I was wondering if you’d like that bigger room, further down the hall.”
“That would be very kind of you, Master,” she said primly. “Messer Fenris will be staying for breakfast? And shall I plan on serving a late supper for two as well?”
“I must say, the years have made you a bit pert. It’s a good thing I’m such a kind and forebearing employer.”
“Humble too,” Fenris said as he stalked in. “If you feed that dog at the table while I’m here, proper manners dictate that I shall be forced to break your fingers. Just so you know.”
“Is this some sort of Tevinter table etiquette I was previously unaware of?”
“It’s the etiquette everywhere except Ferelden, I suspect.”
“The dog jokes just never get old.”
“That’s good to hear,” Fenris said as he stole a piece of bacon from Master’s plate. “As I have several of them.”
Life would be fine, Orana thought, if not for the tension, in Anders, in the city itself. You could see it in the market in the way the Templars loomed over the vendors with mage related goods, hear it in the angry grief of a family member or loved one when yet another new Tranquil walked the Gallows, feel it in your very bones when the Templar Gates crashed down at the end of the day. It was as if the city was like one of those clever little toys with clockwork inside; wind it too tight and something breaks.
The break, when it came, announced itself by way of a large chunk of the Chantry whizzing by the kitchen window. Orana stepped back from the sink, dried her hands almost absently and listened as the call for the Guard rang though the city.
The next few hours were almost a repeat of the Qunari invasion, except this time Orana rather doubted a barred door or traps would deter a blood mage or an abomination should they want in. Sandal sat with his arm around the dog and whispered quietly to it, the dog leaning into him and whining in reply.
“It will be all right, you’ll see,” Bodahn said. “Master Hawke will sort everything out somehow and everything will be just the way it was.”
Except it wasn’t, and it couldn’t be, even when everything was over.
Bodahn unbarred the door at Master’s word, and he and his friends stumbled in, weary, bloody, beaten.
“What happened,” Bodahn asked, “if I may?”
Master closed his eyes and leaned against Fenris, who still glowed faintly, battle lust still in his eyes.
“Anders happened,” Fenris growled. “He blew up the fucking Chantry and everyone in it.”
Anders, who sat apart from everyone else, remained expressionless, but hung his head a little.
“And so,” Fenris continued grimly, “We had to take sides. Templars and Meredith or the mages. Guess which one we took.”
“Mages?” Sandal said.
“Who promptly turned to blood magic and became this large, ooky monster,” Isabela said. “But that’s all right, since we also beat down Meredith. I mean, it was like an equal opportunity fight. Everyone got a chance to die by our hands.”
Anders hunched a shoulder and turned his face toward the wall.
Master said, without opening his eyes, “You’re all aware of what comes next, right? We have, at most, a few days before the remaining Templars decide to take action. And once the Divine gets word of what happened here, she’ll have to react as well.”
“Excellent,” Ser Aveline said, “Between the invasion of Starkhaven and an Exalted March, Kirkwall will be well and truly, pardon my Orlesian, fucked.” She sighed. “So much for my retirement plans.”
“I’m sorry,” Master said heavily, “but you know we can’t stay. None of us.”
“Well.” Isabela stood and stretched. “It just so happens that I have a fine fast ship tugging at her docking lines and ready to go.”
“Better than a forced march at midnight, I suppose,” Ser Aveline said. “What say the rest of you?”
Everyone murmured assent except Anders, Fenris and her Master.
“Oh come on, Anders,” Isabela said, “ what are you going to do, wait here for the Templars to execute you?”
“Yes,” Anders said simply, looking down at his hands. “It’s what I expected.”
“No,” her Master said suddenly, opening his eyes and staring at Anders’s averted face. “You don’t get the easy way out. I don’t care if you try to make up for it or writhe on your guilt for the rest of your life, but you don’t get to just leave the mess you made for the rest of us to clean up.”
It seemed as if Anders would say something to that, then the light in his eyes faded and he merely murmured, “Very well.”
“Fenris?” Isabela asked.
“I go with Hawke, you know that.”
Orana waited for what felt like an eternity for her Master to speak. “We go with Isabela. For now,” he said heavily. “Bodahn, I thank you for your service, but I don’t think your initial offer ever extended to a life on the run.”
“Not as such, Master Hawke. I’ve done that and it’s a rather dangerous lifestyle. I have to look out for my boy.”
“As you say,” her Master said quietly. “Orana.”
“Yes, Master.”
“I have a fair amount of gold hidden in the floor between the wine cask and the wall. I want you take it and go somewhere safe, away from here.”
One does not ever say no to a Master, or refuse an order, but Orlana did it for the first time in her life. “No, Master.”
“No.” He repeated the word as if he didn’t know what it meant.
“No, Master. I won’t leave you.”
“Orana,” he said gently, “You are a free woman. You don’t have to do this.”
“I know I am free,” she said. “I’ve saved every sovereign, every silver, ever copper you’ve ever paid me. Saved enough for passage back to Tevinter first class, should I so desire.” He smiled, clearly remembering that conversation. She continued, “Perhaps Master will forgive me if this seems bold, but,” and here she hesitated before bravely pushing on, “you are almost like my family. A person doesn’t leave their family.”
“Well said,” Fenris said with a rare half smile.
“I give up,” Master said. “Fine, grab your lute and come along. Just one thing.”
“Yes, Master?”
“My name is Hawke. Family call each other by name.”
She paused, then looked him in the eyes, and said, “Hawke.”