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‘This is a foolish plan,’ Fenris told Garrett Hawke when the latter asked him for advice on the Qun, and—more specifically—how he could become the Arishok’s lover. Fenris had almost added ‘for a foolish man,’ but realised his warning would fall on deaf ears.
For Garrett Hawke had decided that he wanted to sleep with the Arishok—his latest harebrained scheme in this equally harebrained city—and once the dark-haired bearded rogue had decided on something, not even his beloved sister Bethany would be able to dissuade him.
Somehow, things had a way of working out well for Hawke, even though they really shouldn’t. Either the man was incredibly, ridiculously, extremely lucky, Fenris thought—or the Maker was real and loved Hawke very, very, very much.
‘But I want him,’ Hawke whined, ‘and I don’t know anything about the Qun or the Qunari. That’s why I need your help. You do.’
Fenris sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose: as much as he regarded Hawke as his friend, a competent fighter and wielder of dual daggers he respected for his skill as much as his can-do attitude, sometimes Fenris swore that the man’s occasional idiocy would be the death of him.
However, since Hawke had taken the time to visit him at his mansion—it was close enough to the Hawke Estate that meant the rogue was a frequent visitor—Fenris decided to humour him. Just this once.
‘The Qunari do not do relationships the way you might do relationships,’ the elf finally settled on saying.
‘Meaning?’
‘Qunari do not have romantic or sexual partners as you might understand it. A Qunari’s most important relationship is the one with their colleagues. They are capable of feeling and forming emotional bonds with one another, but do not express it sexually.’
‘They don’t?’ Hawke yelped; and Fenris couldn’t tell if the man was surprised, disappointed or outraged. ‘They don’t have sex with each other—ever?’
‘They do. Sex is treated as a simple biological need, not as a part of an intimate relationship—re-education awaits those who transgress this. I doubt the Arishok—as one of the three highest leaders of the Qun—will transgress that rule for you.’
‘Hmmm,’ was all Hawke said.
‘To put it bluntly: the Arishok is not going to fuck you, Hawke.’
‘Not even if I’m willing to relieve his “simple biological needs”?’
‘No.’
‘Hmmm,’ Hawke said again.
‘I advise you,’ Fenris continued, ‘to abandon this plan of yours. As I said, it is a foolish one.’
‘What if,’ Hawke persisted, ‘I can make the Arishok… very very fond of me?’
Fenris snorted. ‘You think that is possible?’
‘It might be a step in the right direction,’ Hawke pressed, cheerfully, and Fenris resisted the urge to facepalm. ‘How would I know? You said you overheard the Qunari saying the Arishok considers me basalit-an—a bas worthy of his highest respect. Surely I’m already well on the way.’
Fenris thought for a moment. ‘I believe the term kadan—meaning “where the heart lies” in Qunlat—is used for a colleague, friend or loved one that a Qunari cares about. I do not believe you are considered kadan.’
Hawke brightened. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ he said, to Fenris’s incredulous face. ‘Fine. How can I become the Arishok’s kadan?’
‘That is a question for the Arishok,’ Fenris replied. ‘Not me.’
So Hawke took his question to the Arishok. Unfortunately for Fenris, he also took Fenris.
The Arishok sat, as usual, high above everyone on his dais in the Qunari Compound, looming over his men in his typical manner, tall and fierce and imposing—and, to Hawke’s eyes, very very sexy. The glint of ale bottles on the ground next to his dais could be seen—and briefly, Fenris wondered if the Arishok was coping far less well with Kirkwall than he was letting on.
‘Shanedan, Hawke,’ the Arishok rumbled in greeting, his weathered grey face as scowlingly impassive as ever. Fenris waited for a preamble, for the two men to make polite small talk before Hawke launched into the reason why he was here—but unfortunately (again) for Fenris, Hawke had other ideas.
‘I want to know,’ Hawke said, ‘how do I become your kadan?’
Fenris closed his eyes and groaned inwardly. It was official, he thought: Hawke would be his cause of death. The Arishok would surely direct his men to attack them for Hawke’s impertinence, and there were far too many Qunari for Fenris to fight his way out of the Compound and save his own life, never mind Hawke’s.
The Arishok regarded Hawke with an expression on his face that Fenris couldn’t tell was thoughtful or incredulous. The two Qunari soldiers standing guard either side of his dais looked equally stern and unreadable… and as much as he respected the Qunari and their stoic natures, Fenris wished at this moment in time that they were easier to read—so he could know whether today was going to be the day he would die or not.
So lost was Fenris in thoughts of his impending doom—to say nothing of Hawke’s, though frankly, the man deserved it—that when Fenris next paid attention to the conversation his friend was having with the Arishok, he was surprised to realise that perhaps he would not die today.
‘So—let me get this straight,’ Hawke was saying. ‘You would like me to get rid of… a goose.’
‘It is not just any goose,’ the Arishok replied gruffly, knitting his brows in a frown. ‘It is a horrible goose. It attacks my men, unprovoked. It tries to steal our weapons. It damages things for fun. It is a horrible goose like this horrible city we find ourselves in—as foul and corrupt as any of our enemies. Several of my men have been badly injured trying to chase it away, and we cannot afford to lose any men to a goose. Yet it keeps returning.’
‘Why don’t you just kill it?’
The Arishok glared at Hawke. ‘Do you destroy a thing merely for existing? We Qunari do not kill animals for being mere animals. Just as we do not kill the bas of this city simply for being bas.’
Fenris gulped at the implicit threat, but Hawke—bas himself, even if he was elevated to basalit-an in the Arishok’s eyes—was entirely oblivious to it.
‘Why don’t I just kill it?’
Fenris couldn’t tell, but he could swear the Arishok’s lips quirked up slightly in amusement. ‘If it becomes necessary to do more than chase it away, then… I do not hope you die.’
Hawke raised an eyebrow. ‘Alright then,’ he said. ‘Where can I find this… this horrible goose? He doesn’t seem to be in the Compound right now.’
‘He will come,’ the Arishok said, in his deep voice. ‘He may be bothering your citizens in the docks or swimming in the waters there—but eventually, he will come.’
So it was agreed: Hawke would return tomorrow morning, get rid of the goose that was bothering the Qunari, and—maybe—earn the right for the Arishok to consider him kadan.
It was a lovely day in Kirkwall, and there he was: the horrible goose.
The goose originally came from a pond (or was it a small lake?) outside of Kirkwall, where the locals had named him Herbert. Until one day, when the locals had enough of Herbert’s antics—violence towards the villagers, faking his death, stealing people’s belongings, causing widespread chaos—and some brave individual had somehow managed to capture the bird and deposit him in the city itself, figuring that the wild mayhem of Kirkwall might be more to Herbert’s tastes.
Herbert had found his way to the Gallows, where he honked at and attacked templars and mages every time any of them tried to set foot in the courtyard—he seemed to have a particular fondness for mages, but bit enough templars that the powers-that-be were keen to get rid of him anyway—and it took a large party of templars and Circle mages (Bethany Hawke included) to subdue the goose and shove him on the barge back to the Kirkwall Docks.
Herbert then made his way to the Qunari Compound, where he attacked the Qunari soldiers stationed there, with seemingly a particular taste for the Arishok’s saarebas troops. He was a menace, and he needed to be disposed of.
The plan, then, was to deposit Herbert the Goose far outside of the city, ending all of Herbert’s anserine shenanigans, and win the Arishok’s undying gratitude. Surely this was easy enough—what could go wrong?
The goose—large, white, yellow-beaked, the supposed personification of evil—was waddling towards the Qunari Compound at the same time as their party of four approached the same place. Looking at it, Fenris could hardly believe this was the solitary creature that had caused as much havoc as if it were a whole gaggle of geese—but by now, Herbert the Goose had a reputation, and it hadn’t just been the Qunari among his victims.
The goose eyed them suspiciously, and Hawke looked it fearlessly in the eye as he approached the fowl.
‘There he is,’ Hawke said. ‘The goose I want… for the Arishok.’
For a moment Fenris had a wild image in his head of Hawke picking it up, taking it into the Compound and chasing the Arishok with it in some kind of bizarre attempt to woo the giant horned man.
‘Hawke,’ Varric drawled, ‘I, uh, don’t wanna ruin your enthusiasm, but if the Arishok and his men couldn’t get rid of this goose, you sure you can?’
Hawke looked down at his dwarven friend. ‘You think he’s given me an impossible task, Varric?’
Varric gave the human a casual half-shrug, spreading his hands wide with upward palms. ‘Maybe I just don’t wanna see you go on a wild goose chase,’ he said.
Fenris snorted. Hawke and Varric turned their attention back to the goose—Herbert—in front of them, eyeing them with his beady eye before honking loudly at the gates of the Compound.
‘Alright, bird,’ Hawke said, walking over. ‘That’s enough now. Come away from there—’
The goose hissed at Hawke, before opening its wings to what appeared to be almost its full wingspan—it was huge, Fenris thought—and suddenly there was a flurry of white feathers, windy flapping, goose-honking, and then goose-screaming. Fenris instinctively drew his sword—he saw Varric readying his crossbow Bianca out of the corner of his eye—when suddenly Hawke yelped in pain as the goose bit him.
‘He bit me!’ Hawke yelled in shock as the goose waddled away at pace. ‘He actually managed to find the tiny slits in my armour and he bit me!’
‘He’s on the run!’ Varric shouted back, aiming Bianca at the fleeing bird. He fired his crossbow; but the goose somehow swerved, hard, and the bolt missed.
‘We can’t just let him go!’ Hawke hollered. ‘He’s getting away! Chase him!’
And that was how Fenris found himself foolishly, frantically, giving chase after the goose with Hawke and Varric. The goose kept looking over his shoulder as he waddled away, at a surprisingly fast pace; and every time the three of them seemed to close in on him, Herbert the Goose would spread his wings and fly on ahead of them, putting some distance between himself and the elf, human and dwarf chasing him.
They kept on like this, all the way out of the city gates, and once they were safely out of Kirkwall, Hawke—sweaty and bleeding from goose bites—decided he’d done enough.
‘The goose is out of the city now,’ he said, brushing his hands together as if to say mission accomplished. ‘Maybe this is enough to stop him bothering the Arishok and his men. Goose bites aside—’ and here Hawke winced at his bleeding bite-wounds and shredded leather armour in those places, ‘—that was easier than I thought it would be.’
After they trudged back to the city, exhausted and sweaty as if they’d actually fought a battle, Hawke decided to go to the docks to reassure the Arishok and his men that the goose was well away from them all (and could he please be rewarded as the man’s kadan and maybe more).
But on the way back to the Compound, Herbert the Goose was there ahead of them, eating bugs off the ground. He looked up—and as his eyes met theirs, Fenris heard the sound of almost-laughter-like honking mocking them.
The Arishok, as expected, was most displeased. Fenris couldn’t blame him: how Hawke could think it was enough to just chase the goose out of the city when even the Arishok’s own men couldn’t do that, was beyond him.
So Hawke had to try again.
Aveline refused to have anything to do with this ridiculous errand, while Isabela flatly refused to go anywhere near the Qunari Compound. So, unfortunately for Fenris and Varric, the two of them were the staple of Hawke’s goose-removal party.
Hawke requested, however, that this time they get Anders—in case he got bitten again and needed healing. So, much to Fenris’s chagrin, the mage accompanied them.
They found Herbert the Goose honking loudly at a stoic-looking Qunari, who regarded the goose with folded arms and a look of disdain as he guarded the Compound.
Hawke crept up behind the goose as stealthily as he could, unsheathing his daggers as he moved. As he moved within range, the goose seemed to hear him, and swivelled its entire body round.
‘HONK!’
Fenris saw a blur of white, and instinctively unslung his broadsword; and as another flurry of feathers engulfed them, he swung uselessly at the air as he heard a crossbow bolt fired and a fireball being hurled. There was a frenzy of activity as somehow his toe got bitten, another yell from Hawke as he got bitten (again), all set to the noise of violent goose-honking and battle sounds and the smell of fresh birdshit.
When the commotion cleared, Hawke was once again giving chase, Anders running behind him—and Fenris could see, even in the distance, that Herbert the Goose had somehow made off with both of Hawke’s daggers.
‘Hey!’ Hawke was yelling, as the goose cackled and waddled swiftly away with both Hawke’s knife-like daggers in its beak. ‘Gimme back my knives!’
Fenris sighed and rolled his eyes. He looked at Varric, who looked back at him.
‘Not exactly a “golden goose”,’ Varric quipped, slowly, ‘but certainly the gift that keeps giving.’
‘I suppose we should give chase,’ Fenris rumbled, ignoring the dwarf’s joke.
Varric shrugged. ‘Nah,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’m not going on a wild goose chase again—they’ll never let me live it down at the Hanged Man if they hear I’ve gone on a second pursuit after some stoopid goose. Anyway, I’m sure Anders and Hawke can handle it. I’m going for a drink. Coming?’
Hawke was outraged that Fenris and Varric had abandoned him in his hour of need. Not only had Hawke needed them (or so he tried to impress upon them both, as he sat bleeding in the Hanged Man, dabbing delicately at his new bites), but how would he win the Arishok over now?
‘Hawke,’ Varric replied, glass of wine in hand after listening to the man’s complaints in his suite, as Fenris dealt another hand of cards, ‘I gotta be honest: I am not chasing down some goose all over Kirkwall just so you can win the Arishok’s cock.’
‘But have you seen that Ari-cock?’ Hawke demanded. ‘If you’d seen how big that bulge is under his armour skirts, then you’d understand why I want it.’
‘Mmmm,’ Varric considered this, and took a sip of his wine. ‘Somehow Hawke, I think he’s not for me. But you do you. I just don’t wanna join in this game, that’s all.’
‘Varric,’ and here Hawke pouted and looked at the dwarf with big brown puppy-eyes, ‘I thought you were my friend? Friends support friends. Friends help friends. And you and Fenris—’ he turned his puppy eyes on Fenris, ‘—didn’t help me.’
Varric sighed. ‘Fine,’ he conceded. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t help you this time. Do you need my help next time?’
Hawke stopped pouting, and fixed Varric with a serious expression. ‘Yes. Anders and I had to tackle the goose ourselves, and we failed. We chased it all the way to Sundermount, and Anders said it couldn’t possibly get back from there—plus there’s nature! The goose will be happier there!’
‘And lemme guess,’ Varric drawled. ‘You returned to Kirkwall, and you saw the goose on the way back to the Compound.’
Now it was Hawke’s turn to sigh. ‘Yes. And the fucker didn’t even give my daggers back. So I’m gonna have to buy new ones.’
Fenris drew a card, and placed it carefully on the table in front of him before he spoke. ‘Was the mage no help?’ he couldn’t help asking.
‘Anders? Had to carry him back to Kirkwall, unfortunately. The goose bit me so many times—how does he keep finding all the tiny slits in my armour to give me a nip?—that Anders had to heal me several times before we got to Sundermount.’
‘Sounds like you need better armour, Hawke,’ Varric said. ‘But what happened to Blondie?’
‘Oh, the goose attacked him,’ Hawke said, casually, ‘and Anders was out of mana from healing me, so he couldn’t cast any spells to defend himself.’
Fenris hmphed. ‘Typical.’
‘I’m not really sure how it happened,’ Hawke said slowly, ‘but the goose bit him, harder than it bit me—and when Anders screamed it attacked him so hard that I couldn’t see what was going on. Just a blur of feathers and flapping and screaming. From both of them, if I’m honest.’
‘Maker’s breath, Hawke. How did you get the goose to leave Blondie alone?’
‘Oh, I punched it,’ the rogue answered, as if this was the most normal thing in the world. ‘I think it would have killed Anders otherwise. When it flew off, Anders was on the ground, bruised and battered and bleeding and unconscious.’ Hawke paused. ‘I saved some goose feathers for him, to replace the ones that came off his pauldrons in the fight. He’ll have to dye them to match, though.’
Varric set his wine glass down on the table. ‘Perhaps I should go and see Blondie when I get a spare moment. Check he’s okay.’
‘Oh, he’s fine,’ Hawke said. ‘He revived when I got him into his clinic, but he point-blank refuses to come with me again when I try to banish the goose a third time.’
Fenris groaned. ‘I wish we could do the same.’
‘Third time lucky!’ Hawke said cheerfully as they set out, again, in pursuit of Herbert the Goose.
‘I don’t get it,’ Merrill piped up (for she had come in Anders’s place). ‘Why are we getting rid of the goose? Is it a sort of game we’re playing?’
‘Don’t ask,’ Fenris muttered darkly to himself as he and Varric trailed the other two—but Varric, who’d always had a soft spot for the Dalish elf, answered her anyway.
‘It seems the Arishok has given Hawke some kind of unwanted-goose game in order to win his ultimate approval,’ the dwarf explained, kindly. ‘Which is why we’re here, Daisy. To help our friend Hawke get rid of the goose, and win the Arishok’s hard, grey heart.’
Hawke grinned. ‘And win his hard, grey—’
‘There is your goose,’ Fenris interrupted, before he was forced to hear the word Ari-cock again. This whole excursion—or few excursions—had rapidly made him lose respect for both his friend and the leader of the Qunari; and he didn’t want his good opinion of both to sink further with images he would rather not have in his mind right now. ‘Ahead of us. Attacking one of the Arishok’s men.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Hawke said, drawing out his shiny new daggers, as Herbert honked and bit and pecked the poor saarebas that was trying to fend him off without killing him (something the saarebas could probably do quite easily, Fenris thought). ‘Why is he back? Why does he keep attacking mages? What has he got against them?’
‘Maybe they taste better,’ Merrill offered.
‘Looks like the saarebas is at least faring better than Blondie did,’ Varric observed.
A strong mind-blast from the saarebas helped knock the goose back, before the Qunari mage conjured a whirring noise that got louder and more intense the more he powered up his spell, ready to unleash a lightning storm on the goose if needed.
‘Teth a!’ another Qunari soldier shouted in warning. ‘Basalit-an!’
The saarebas wound down his whirring spell to note Hawke approaching them, in the exact spot he had been aiming to unleash his magic—and Herbert the Goose took the opportunity to bite.
Hawke had ruined what was probably about to be a successful attempt to rid the Compound of the goose once and for all, Fenris groaned, simply by showing up at an inconvenient time. Which was typical Hawke, and typical Kirkwall.
The goose screamed, flapping towards their party, a huge mass of angry white feathers and angry black eyes and wide-open yellow bill—lined with sharp, pointy teeth—when suddenly, something whooshed past them and collided with the goose, which promptly fell asleep.
‘Wait—’ Hawke started. ‘What—how—what happened?’
‘I cast a Sleep spell,’ Merrill supplied, helpfully. ‘Did I do something wrong? Was the goose supposed to be awake?’
Fenris grunted. Trust the blood mage, of all people, to be the only one of their party—possibly the only person in Kirkwall—that actually had an effective answer for how to deal with an aggressive goose pest.
Entropy spells were one of Merrill’s magic specialities—something neither Anders, nor Bethany, nor (it seemed) the Arishok’s saarebas troops were able to do. Which was why none of them had thought of simply rendering Herbert unconscious.
And yet, here was Merrill, the blood mage who wouldn’t say boo to a goose—or was least likely to say boo to a goose out of their motley crew of misfits—who turned out to be the one who’d actually proved successful in stifling its belligerent antics.
‘Well,’ Hawke eventually said, staring down at the goose’s limp, slumbering body, ‘I suppose we ought to get rid of it.’
Varric exhaled in exasperation. ‘Can we not just kill it, Hawke? Be rid of it once and for all?’
Fenris saw Hawke look up expectantly at the scowling Qunari soldier, next to the masked saarebas, before answering. ‘I don’t think the Qunari—or the Arishok—approve of unnecessary animal death,’ Hawke said, and the Qunari soldier seemed to almost nod in approval at his words. ‘We’ll take it into the Deep Roads.’
‘The Deep Roads?’ Fenris and Varric started at once.
‘It’s probably the only place far enough away to ensure it can’t come back,’ Hawke reasoned. ‘Fenris, would you do the honours? You’re a warrior, and therefore the strongest out of all of us—if you carry it, you have a better chance of controlling it if it wakes. And Merrill can always cast Sleep on it again.’
When Fenris looked back on this period of his life, he decided, the only reason why he did as he was told was because he was far too stunned to formulate the word ‘no’ in response. Carrying a malicious, violent goose into the Deep Roads wasn’t exactly anyone’s idea of a nice, sunny day out—except possibly Merrill’s, for the elven mage was so excited to visit somewhere she hadn’t been before, that it was all Fenris could do to grit his teeth and glare at her.
(Snapping at her wouldn’t have the desired effect while he had a large, unconscious goose in his arms anyway, Fenris decided.)
The Deep Roads were indeed a long way away from Kirkwall—and the four of them walked a long time through the many lava-lined underground passageways that made up the maze of roads and thaigs deep beneath the Free Marches. Dwarven architecture was very fine, Fenris had to concede: geometric patterns had been carved evenly into the red-faced rock, glowing in the red rivers of lava that ran alongside firm, well-paved roads of stone.
They walked for ages without coming across a single enemy, much to Fenris’s relief, for it meant he could observe and admire his surroundings in silence. Among the shadows and firelight were many crumbling passageways, as well as tunnels that had stood the test of time, carvings of angular dwarf-like figures into the walls, and monuments to the dwarves’ lost glory.
It was rather awe-inspiring, Fenris pondered to himself, lost in thought enough that he barely heard Merrill’s chatter or Varric and Hawke’s remarks to each other. He wondered that Varric did not care for it: even if it was a testament to a heritage and people that Varric felt no connection to, Fenris could not fail to be impressed at this new environment—impressed at the minds that conceived of this, the hands that built all this, and the technology that created this.
But then he remembered the other things that lurked in the shadows—darkspawn, spiders and other deep creatures—and considered that maybe Hawke was right: maybe this was the best place to deposit a horrible goose. The goose could cause as much chaos and mayhem as the bird wanted down here, and had plenty of enemies to fight. (He shuddered as he tried not to think what a blighted goose would be like.)
‘Hawke,’ Varric said. ‘If we’re planning on walking all the way to where Bartrand found that blasted idol, you might wanna consider we don’t have enough supplies to set up camp enough times before we reach there.’
‘How far was it?’ Fenris couldn’t help asking.
‘At least a few weeks from the surface. And there’s too many darkspawn for you to cleave through to get there.’
‘Do you think here is far enough?’ Merrill asked. ‘The goose would have to find his way out of the Deep Roads first before finding his way to Kirkwall. I know I would get lost down here! Maybe the goose will as well?’
‘You,’ Fenris retorted, ‘are always lost. You are not a good benchmark.’
‘I… wouldn’t wanna put it so bluntly, Daisy,’ Varric hastily cut in, ‘but he does have a point.’
Merrill’s eyes were round in disappointment. ‘Oh,’ she said, crestfallen.
‘But you could be right,’ Varric quickly continued, keen to cheer the elf girl up again. ‘This might be a good place to dump him. He’s a goose: how good could his sense of direction be?’
Fenris laid the goose carefully on the floor. The goose stirred, and Fenris thought he saw it sleepily opening one eye and staring at him before closing it again and murmuring like it was slowly regaining consciousness.
‘Will it attack when it wakes?’ Hawke wondered, eyeing it in trepidation.
Merrill cast another entropy spell on the bird, and the goose slumped back on the ground, its head lolling to one side. ‘This should hold better,’ she confirmed. ‘I cast a Coma—it’s stronger than Sleep. It should paralyse him for a while even if he wakes.’
‘Well,’ Hawke said, dusting his hands off, ‘job done, I suppose. Surely there is no possible way it can come back out from here. Let’s head back to Kirkwall—I need to let the Arishok know the good news.’
It was a lovely morning in Kirkwall, and Fenris was just waking up. The sun streamed in through the windows of his Hightown mansion as the white-haired elf stretched his arms above his head, greeting the day by chasing away the last vestiges of a very peaceful sleep.
The horrible goose—Herbert—had not been seen in Kirkwall for over a week. The Arishok had indeed rewarded Hawke with the high honour of kadan (or so Hawke boasted; but it was not known if the Arishok had explicitly used that Qunlat term to bestow his gratitude upon the human rogue). Hawke, nevertheless, continued to persist with his futile and deluded hope that the Arishok might eventually reward him with a sexual relationship—but also insisted that he would respect the Arishok’s desires and wishes if such a thing were never to happen.
Fenris padded down to the kitchen, contentedly humming to himself as he went to pour out his morning coffee—black coffee, exactly the way he liked it, dark and deep and infused with enough of a caffeine buzz for Fenris to begin the day’s adventures.
One of life’s greatest luxuries and joys was sitting in the spacious kitchen of what had been Danarius’s Kirkwall mansion, looking out of the window over Hightown and the city, sipping his morning coffee, especially on a lovely sunny morning like this. Fenris liked to savour his first beverage of the day slowly, gathering his thoughts and enjoying the view, before shedding his comfy nightshirt and donning his spiky armour to face whatever tumult and maelstrom the City of Chains had planned for him.
So content was Fenris in this morning habit of his that he barely noticed a slight rustling sound coming from one of the darker corners of his large, magnificent kitchen—and when he did hear it, he merely shrugged to himself. Whatever was lurking in wait—a mouse, perhaps, or something similarly small and nothing to worry about—could wait until he’d finished his favourite ritual for his favourite part of the day.
Fenris gulped the last of his coffee, and was about to enjoy a second when a white movement happened out of the corner of his eye.
He turned round.
The goose flung itself at him, all angry honking and a blur of feathers and a wingspan so wide the bird seemed to take up the mansion’s entire kitchen, like a giant bird of prey, and Fenris yelled and ducked. Herbert the Goose tried to bite his ear with an angry chomp, but Fenris’s reflexes were faster—thank goodness for coffee, he thought—and he spun away with an arm up to fend off the fowl, shouting in pain as it nipped his elbow.
Panicked, his eyes darted all around him for some kind of weapon he could use in defence—his sword was nowhere near him—and his gaze landed on the only plausible implement: a large rolling-pin he had purchased some weeks before when he wanted to try to teach himself to make pastries.
There was nothing else for it. He had to use the rolling-pin.
The goose honked as it flew around the kitchen, flapping and crapping everywhere it went, the beat of its wings sending everything flying and crashing all over like a wind turbine had hit the place. Fenris leapt out of the way at both bird and falling cooking utensils, grabbing one end of the rolling-pin in one hand—then both as he pirouetted expertly on the toes of one foot, and landed in a fighting stance of one foot in front of the other as he grabbed the rolling-pin handle in both hands.
The goose honked angrily, and then dived.
Fenris raised the rolling-pin above his head as if it were his broadsword, getting ready to fight.
He batted the goose away when it first came for him, smacking it hard into a kitchen cupboard like a baseball, and Herbert angrily screamed and threw something at him. Fenris ducked again as a knife came straight for his head—pointy end aimed straight at him (did all geese have such good aim?)—and readied himself again. It happened fast: the goose flew at him again, and with a blur of white feathers dive-bombing him Fenris reacted entirely on instinct, spinning round like a whirlwind before bringing the rolling-pin down in front of him like a maul in a Mighty Blow.
The goose wriggled under his weapon for a bit, before becoming quite still. When Fenris had caught his breath—he held the rolling-pin where it was for a while, panting, blood pulsing in ears and thundering through his head in the fury of battle where he barely registered anything other than the fight—it felt as if he’d come to, and he stared, dumbfounded, at all the goose blood splattered through the kitchen and on the worktop in front of him.
He’d killed the goose.
Fenris hadn’t meant to kill it—only defend himself enough to get out of there—and yet it had happened: he had accidentally crushed Herbert the Goose. He’d brought the rolling-pin down on its neck mid-flight in a Killer Blow, entirely on instinct, and now: Herbert the Goose was no more.
The goose was dead. His reign of terror was formally over.
Still panting, Fenris felt the shock wash through him. He collapsed onto the nearest kitchen stool, dropping the bloodied rolling-pin with a loud clatter onto the floor; and surveyed the mess of red liquid and white feathers and broken crockery in front of him, wondering what he should tell Hawke.
Epilogue:
Herbert the Goose died as he lived: destructively. Since he died in Fenris’s kitchen, the only fitting end for him, the gang decided, was to cook him.
Hawke took charge of the cooking—and it turned out the only thing Hawke was worse at than wooing the Arishok, was roasting a goose. When it came to Hawke’s culinary skills, it turned out that what was sauce for the goose was definitely not sauce for the gander. By the looks on the faces of all of Hawke’s companions as they sat round the large mahogany dining table in Fenris’s mansion, they all regretted being there, but were far too polite to say so.
The horrible goose made a horrible meal: Herbert’s undignified end saw him made into a truly awful dish with wine and some other things. Nobody liked it.
When Hawke next brought Fenris to the Qunari Compound, Fenris was surprised to learn that the Arishok already knew that the goose had returned to Kirkwall. (Somehow he seemed to know everything that happened in this city without even being present—whether that was what happened to the delegate he’d sent to the Viscount, or whether Hawke had completed whatever inane task he’d set him.)
The Arishok also knew that the goose had died at Fenris’s hands—and for this, knowing how the Qunari felt about unnecessary animal deaths, Fenris felt forced to apologise.
‘It does not matter,’ the Arishok boomed in his deep voice. ‘You fought well, and I understand he was made into a meal for seven of you. The Qunari do not object to slaughtering for food, and per the Qun, we waste nothing. I am pleased to know that no part of the goose went to waste.’
‘Well,’ Hawke said brightly, ‘at least the goose will definitely never bother you or your men ever again.’
‘He will not,’ agreed the Arishok.
‘And you accepted my gift,’ Hawke said—and Fenris looked at the man, wondering what gift he could possibly be talking about.
‘I did,’ the Arishok rumbled. ‘It did not go to waste. I appreciated such a useful item.’
‘So, maybe…’ and Hawke grinned cheekily, lopsidedly, at the huge horned man in front of him, ‘maybe we could…?’
He waggled his eyebrows at the Arishok, and Fenris couldn’t help it: he groaned and rolled his eyes. But to his surprise, the Arishok seemed amenable to his silly goose of a friend.
‘Come inside my tent, Hawke,’ the Qunari leader eventually said, expression unreadable except for—and was Fenris imagining what he saw here?—a slight twinkle in his eye.
Hawke grinned, then beamed like the cat that got the cream as he ascended the steps to the Arishok, who gestured intimately towards a large tent—brightly lit inside—that was clearly where he slept.
Fenris did not need to know any more. As the curtain descended behind the two men—a brand-new curtain in place of a door flap, made of (strangely familiar) white goose feathers—Fenris decided it was best to leave them to a fade-to-black, and gratefully faded into the night.