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Light plays at dancing through the trees, and shadows a pattern over them. Her reaching fingertips brush up against the branches and leaves which curl downwards into their path. She plucks one as she passes, turning it between her fingers – a dizzying spin of greens, yellows and reds. Merrill and Isabela catch her attention and so she lets it go. It floats away from her, landing the step behind him. She’s turning to listen to what Merrill is telling her as they walk, and he watches the edge of her smile. The warm glow of the setting sun haloes around Hawke’s profile. It sets fire to all it touches, from the stray strands of her hair in the breeze, to what seeps through her fingers as she talks, landing on him. Fenris knows he must tell her soon.
It’s dark by the time their tired feet find the familiar cobble of Kirkwall’s streets. Hawke hugs Merrill goodnight while he turns his head towards the sky, counts stars through the smoke of the torch. Isabela’s goodbye is a merry wave, the unexpected pat of Hawke’s ass. Hawke and Fenris look at each other as the door to the Hanged Man swings shut, and after a moment begin to laugh together. They fall naturally in step beside each other. Step by steady step up the stairs of Lowtown, listening to the distant sounds of conversation and laughter, as they head towards Hightown.
Merrill tends to walk with her gaze cast towards the ground, charting steps. While Anders closely studies other people’s faces, Isabela makes a map of the rest of their body, their pockets. Aveline is always on guard, on duty, even when she says she isn’t, eyes darting around to everything that could be amiss. He’s noticed more than once Sebastian’s head tilting upwards, his eyes closed, guided by the sounds of them around him. Varric only ever spares attention for his friends, his walking usually accompanied by engaging conversation. Too often Fenris’ gaze was fixed behind, ever glancing over his own shoulder. He looks forward more now, in the same way Hawke always has.
The Chantry looms into sight, and underneath its glare, the dueling hawks above the door of her estate. Careful as he reaches out, his fingertips touching against hers, bringing her to a halt. Surprised, perhaps, but she doesn’t pull her hand away from his. “I was wondering if I could speak with you,” Fenris says. Hawke’s shoulders ease, the smile spreads.
“Yours or mine?”
She’s haphazardly pulling at straps and buckles, trying to undo the familiar armor which marks Hawke as Champion. She sighs relief when she finally sits down, free of armor and weapons, and rolls her head forward as she works out the ache in her neck, her back. It’s with an absentminded flick of her fingers that she lights the fireplace, stretches her feet out in front of it with a grateful groan, her boots flopped over beside her. He takes the seat across from her once he has put his own armor away, and watches as Marian runs a hand through her hair. It’s the longest it’s been in years, as she’s been given no reason to cut it back yet. There’s always a reason, she had told him after Carver, Leandra, the Arishok… he doesn’t want to be the reason for it, again.
His mantle is covered in things, now. A ship in a bottle from Isabela, wolf figures from Merrill. Even Carver has sent him things from his time spent travelling with the Wardens. Of course, they leave their marks in other places – one glance at all the things Isabela has carved into his stair rail is proof of that. Sebastian has filled his closet with clothes not particularly suiting his taste, but nonetheless appreciated. Varric has generously donated to his library, stacked his shelves. It’s not without a trace of Anders and his skill, Aveline and her frequent attempts to implore him to move. There are cups underneath the holes in his roof, and the dust, cobwebs, have been banished. Fenris wouldn’t quite call it home, but it is more than it used to be.
“What did you want to talk about?” Marian’s voice pulls him from his own examination of his place, and he sits up a little straighter in his chair.
“I have been thinking more, on what happened with Danarius,” he says. She shifts forward slightly, crosses her arms, perches her elbows on her knees as she listens. “It has finally begun to feel real, that he is dead. I thought that once I had come to this point… his death would solve everything for me. I would no longer need to run and fight to stay alive, and I would be able to truly live as a free man. Yet,” his hands clench into fists over his knees. “I am not sure how to – do that. Danarius’s life gave me purpose, direction. His death gives me nothing.”
“Doesn’t it?” She gives him a brief smile, opens her hands to him, palms out. “Now there’s nothing to hold you back. A terrible sort of gift, isn’t it? One with so many choices.”
“Perhaps it is time to move forward. I just don’t know where that leads.” His hands squeeze a little tighter. “Do you?”
“Wherever it leads, I hope it means we’ll still be able to have days like this.” She leans back, palms flat down beside her, palms curling around the edge of the bench. “The ones we spend together,” she says, as the fire casts warm light across her.
“That is my hope as well,” Fenris tells her, and her breath catches in her throat as she watches the fond smile spreads easy and true across his face. She also watches it lose its confidence, falter, as his gaze turns down from hers. “We have never discussed what happened between us three years ago.”
“No,” Marian says softly, “we haven’t.” Her fingers tangle together, pull at each other.
“I felt like a fool,” he says as he leans forward as well, before, “I thought it better if you hated me.” He pushes himself up from the chair, paces the empty space across the room, back and forth, in front of the fireplace. Finally, he comes to a slow stop near the bench. “I deserved no less.”
“I understood why you left that night Fenris,” she says. “I won’t deny that it hurt. I wish it was done in a better way. But I understood. I’ve always understood.”
“If I could go back, I would stay.”
“I know, but I’m glad you didn’t.” He blinks, taken aback. She continues quickly. “I don’t think we were the right people for each other, then. Not yet. Too many things holding us back.”
“And now we have so many choices.”
“A terrible gift, just like I told you,” she says as she looks up at him. Their shared laughter is low, but oh, it’s a relief. Fenris takes a hesitant step forward, pauses in the unending agony of organizing thought, of finding the right words.
“Even so, I… I still wish I had made the choice to tell you how I felt.”
“What would you have said?” She could sit forever in this moment. Gossamer green settling, butterfly wings of lashes falling across his color as he smiles, breathless as he looks at her, steps closer.
“Nothing could be worse than the thought of living without you.”
“Fenris –”
“I should have asked your forgiveness long ago. I hope you can forgive me now.” She stands up slowly, closes what little distance is left between them. Touch, against his wrist, her token. Then her arms wrap around his waist, hands moving up his back. He’s slow to settle in his own allowance of such a thing, but he does. He does, so much, so needy, greedy, wanted and wanting in equal measure. Her fingers stitch at the back of his shoulder, wind into his tunic. A hand settles at the nape of her neck, his other arm pulling her closer against him. A hiccup of watery laughter, and she buries the smile she can’t be rid of against his shoulder. “If there is a future to be had, I will walk into it gladly at your side,” he murmurs low, his lips against the shell of her ear, as he hugs her harder, holds her tighter.
He wakes later with a sharp inhale, his eyes snapping open. He has a foot on the floor, leg off the narrow bed. One of his arms is asleep, trapped underneath her. Fenris is still thoroughly tangled in her, the embrace of her wings. She’s half draped over him, arms curled around him. He doubts he could free his leg from how tightly hers hug it. Starlight flickers through the cracks between the boards, cast a glow in place of still warm embers. Marian’s head is tucked into the crook of his neck, and he rests his cheek against her forehead. It’s enough. The slightest shift, and her hand moves up to brush against his face.
“Fen,” a low and hoarse murmur as her finger moves slow back and forth against his cheek, “bad dream?” Tired eyes open, stars reflected in her lyrium blue. Her affectionate touch remains steady. “Memories?”
“Memories.” She begins to move but, “good ones,” he reassures her quietly, kisses her gently, his hand warm at her back, unwilling to let her go. “Of you. Us.”