This week’s prompt:

Chose a song to inspire a story

I need somebody to heal
Somebody to know
Somebody to have
Somebody to hold
It’s easy to say
But it’s never the same
I guess I kinda liked the way you numbed all the pain
Now the day bleeds
Into nightfall
And you’re not here
To get me through it all
I let my guard down
And then you pulled the rug
I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved
“Someone you loved” by Lewis Capaldi

The city burned in the distance. Meredith was dead, but no one won. How many died in Kirkwall today? Fenris found that he did not care as much he thought he would. He felt strangely numb.

He heard Hawke coming up behind him, but he did not turn around to face him. He did not wipe away the tears that left tracks in the soot and dirt on his face either.

“We got as many out as we could,” he said. Fenris just nodded curtly. The refugees mattered, the survivors mattered, what was left of the city would be rebuilt. Hawke would probably be a Viscount. But none of it mattered to Fenris right now.

How could he do this? How could he just murder all those people? How could he do this to him? He thought Anders had loved him. Trusted him. Cared about him. He had been wrong.

“There was no way we could have known that was what he was planning,” Hawke said, as if he could read the elf’s mind.

“No,” Fenris said. “I should have seen the signs. Looking back, they were there.” And they were. He had been selfish and thought that maybe he could help the man. The mage. Maker, what had he been thinking? Of course a mage would do this. Why had he trusted him? Why had he loved him? More tears fell and Fenris thought he could not take the next breath. But he did, and the one after that too. It burned in his lungs.

“You did the right thing,” Hawke said. Why was the man still here? Why would he not just leave him alone? Let him wallow in his misery like a normal person.

“Did I?” he asked, his words hoarse. “Did I, Hawke?” He looked over his shoulder at the man. “You weren’t going to do it.”

Hawke looked away for a second. “I know, I’m sorry.” Fenris could still feel the cold metal of the dagger in his hand as he shoved it through Anders’ back. He could feel the bones and flesh part. Anders never made a sound. He accepted that he was dead before he even made the plan to destroy the Chantry.

Fenris had killed plenty of people before. Stabbed, cut, beat, even ripped out more than a few hearts but this death made him feel sick. It hurt like he had stabbed himself.

“Maker damn him!” Fenris snarled and looked away from Hawke, back out toward the burning city. “And we should have known. We watched him fall to pieces right in front of us and we did nothing. I did nothing.”

Hawke’s hand came down on his shoulder and his first impulse was to shake it off but he held still.

“I don’t know that there is anything we could have done even if we had known.”

“Sure there was,” Fenris said. “But he chose to do this anyway.”

“He was a mage, Hawke, I knew better.” He did shake off the hand now. One last look at his friend’s tired sad face and he walked away, further into the night. It was not over yet. Just over for them.