This prompt was asking for a story about a cat in Kirkwall. Of course I had to involve Fenris somehow. :P

Fenris was uncomfortably certain that there was an intruder in his dilapidated mansion.

There was a feeling of someone or something *looking* at him, and it wasn't just the rats that scurried down the hallways after dark. It was something else, something watching.

It turned out to be a skinny, bedraggled orange cat with big yellow eyes, glaring at him out of the pantry door one morning.

He had been expecting darkspawn, perhaps a shade left behind by Danarius, when he heard something fall over inside the little closet, and when he jerked open the pantry door and saw the glint of those eyes it briefly confirmed his suspicion. He drew his sword before he had registered the tiny size of his intruder.

The little beast fluffed itself up to at least twice its size, arching its back and hissing at him angrily.

Fenris considered stabbing it anyway.

The furious feline tore out of the pantry, rounded the corner out of the kitchen, and in a neat little feat of acrobatics, jumped onto the stairwell through the meager space between the bannister slates and disappeared up the stairs.

He shrugged. He was not about to go chasing through the darkened mansion after a cat.

So every now and again, he would catch a flash of orange out of the corner of his eye, or see a glint of yellow eyes hiding in a darkened room.

Maybe if Hawke didn't keep *feeding* the damned thing, it would have moved on. He should never have told her about his discovery in the pantry.

She would bring some of the grinded meat she kept for her mabari and disappear up the stairs to leave something for it.

"You have to be patient with strays," she told him. "They don't know how to trust people."

Fenris didn't especially care about the psychology of stray cats, and said so.

Hawke gave him an odd look, and dropped the subject.

When the weather became bitterly cold and Fenris stayed next to the fire the majority of the time, he would notice the little beast creeping into the room whenever it thought he was asleep. It gave Fenris a wide berth and did not drift far from the door, but it sometimes ventured close enough to the fire to give him a good look.

The little cat would sit in a distinctively prim sort of way, with all his paws pressed together and his fluffy tail curled around them neatly. Through layers of grime he could see faint ruddy stripes across its fur, and its tail turned entirely white at its tip. If Fenris sat very still, it would close its eyes. But the creature's ears rotated at the slightest noise, so obviously it was still alert and aware of its surroundings, and not really resting.

It was much too cold for Fenris to be bothered to throw off his blankets and get up to chase the creature away, so he let him stay in the warm room for a few minutes, or however long would pass before the little cat became alarmed and ran away.

Hawke would say, "He wants to come closer, I think. He's just too scared right now."

The little beast was the reason Hawke continued to visit him, he imagined. Even as she sat in his room and talked with him, she would be alert for the little orange streak in the corner of her eye. Staring after it thoughtfully, she would speculate about where the cat came from. "He was probably dumped in an alley as a kitten. Or maybe someone tried to drown him – did you know people just put them in a bag and throw them in the harbor? He's never known people to be anything but cruel. No wonder he's so jumpy."

She continued to bring food, and the cat began to look a little less ragged, a little more plump. He was beginning to look like a handsome little cat, with neat orange fur and long whiskers. He did not meow like the pampered pets Fenris had seen before, but remained silent. Occassionally he would hiss at him, if he moved too suddenly or got too close, or sometimes just on general principle.

Anders, of course, claimed to be an expert on cats and had his own opinions on the subject. "You can't keep him cooped up in that dirty mansion. He should be someone's pet, in a nice home where he'll be warm and fed and brushed by somebody who knows how to take care of an animal."

Fenris would have been happy to let Anders take the beast away. But when the mage mentioned using a trap to catch and pen the cat, Fenris bristled.

No traps.

If the creature wanted to leave, it could leave. But he wasn't going to let the abomination imprison it against its will.

He was surprisingly firm on that point.

So the little cat stayed, and poked around the many rooms of Danarius's mansion, and Fenris would find him asleep in strange places, like an empty chamber pot, or in a pile of curtains on the floor. A little ball of orange fur, comfortable and peaceful.

Sometimes he left the cat some of his own food. Just to keep him out of his larder, or so he reasoned.

Hawke said, "It's not such a bad thing to have some company, is it?"

She could get closer than anyone to the little cat. She was patient, and calm, and did not insist. Gradually the cat became curious of her, and would come nearer. Low to the ground, he would creep up alongside her, tail lashing behind him, and his wide eyes would contemplate her with fascination.

She would sit next to him and talk in a sweet, low voice. And the cat would settle down next to her, folding his limbs underneath him and letting his eyes relax into lazy slits. She could not touch him, yet. But she would, someday.

"You do know a few things about cats," he eventually had to admit to her.

"I never could resist a stray," she said.

He knew it already. He was one of them.