Gamlen and Leandra were fighting. Again. Uncle Gamlen did have a point, Leandra could contribute by getting a job taking in laundry or some such thing, but they had this fight every other day and it was getting old fast. Feeling a pounding headache coming on, Hawke knew she had to get away from the shouting, and the overwhelming sense of everything resting on her shoulders. Marian snagged her halberd and whistled for Valor while tucking a few precious silvers into the pouch at her waist. Only fifteen more sovereigns, and we can get on this bloody blighted expedition.
Somehow, she'd become the unofficial-official ringleader of their ragtag band, and the constant harping between Isabela and Aveline, and both Anders and Carver being antagonistic with just about everyone was starting to wear on her nerves. Silently grabbing her pack, Marian slid out the door, Gamlen and Leandra too busy rehashing their same argument to notice. The smell of rotting garbage, human waste, and desperation made her wrinkle her nose, and she dropped her head low to avoid drawing too much attention. The smell of rotting garbage gave way to the smell of rotting fish and bitter brine as Marian drew closer to the docks, and she paid for a ferry to the Wounded Coast, thankfully able to bypass the Gallows since she was a known resident of Kirkwall now.
As the ferry drew further from Kirkwall, Marian breathed in the clean, salty air and ruffled her hair to let the breeze flow through the unruly midnight tumble. The tightness in her chest and ache in her head from living in the center of a city designed to support blood magic and thin the Veil melted away as the city fell behind her. The only reason she could tolerate it was because it also stifled the Templars' abilities to sense mages, a fact which the Chantry and Order had taken great pains to keep under wraps. So long as she stuck to using her halberd if she had to fight, she was safe from the Gallows. Marian shuddered, a gull shrieking overhead.
As soon as her boots touched the Coast dock, she and Valor took off at a trot, the thought of the Kirkwall Circle spurring her onward. The game path they followed was barely there, and most in Kirkwall wouldn't see it if they fell into it and rolled along for a mile. Finally breaking through the brambles and thick bushes, there was the little inlet. Athenril's smugglers abandoned it a few months after Marian started working for the elf. Supposedly, they had been using it for drops long enough that it was time to shift to another one of the dozens of inlets and little coves to keep Templars and city guards off their back and off the trail of their operation.
Now, it was her sanctuary when everything became too much to bear. Marian was fairly certain Isabela knew of it, Varric almost certainly did and kept the Rivaini pirate from just turning up whenever she wished. Anders, Merrill, and Aveline didn't even know it existed. Carver pretended the year of smuggling, and anything associated with it, never happened unless it meant gold in their purse or bread on the table. And Fenris… who knew with Fenris?
He was courteous, went on the jobs he was asked along for, contributed all of his earnings but the coin needed for one meal a day to the pot for the expedition, and, thank the Maker, no longer glared at her like she was going to start dancing naked in the streets doing blood magic at any moment. Fenris also had a habit of saving her from taking many a trip down the staircases of Kirkwall face-first, so there was that. So many bloody blighted stairs, and her boots were so worn they couldn't grip the slick marble in Hightown, nor were they much use on the stairs rubbed smooth from decades of feet in Lowtown. That's what she told herself, anyway. Marian didn't want to admit that she apparently couldn't 'do' stairs if her life depended on it.
Picking her way down to the boulders lining one edge of the inlet, Marian stripped off her boots and stockings, then pulled off her cheap padded leather armor and leggings. Her undershirt, one of Bethany's that she hadn't been able to set aside because of her sister's embroidery along the collar and sleeves, was removed with extra care and folded just so before being placed delicately on top of her other belongings, stacked on a boulder. Halberd stabbed into the sand for easy access just in case, she charged into the waves in her smalls and breastband, shrieking at the chill as it drove the air from her lungs.
It felt wonderful. Her Fereldan blood was meant for bitterly cold, harsh winters and short, dry summers, not the muggy heat of the Marches. The briny waves stripped the sweat from her hide and the weight of leadership from her shoulders, and Marian could laugh as Valor barked happily and tried to herd the seagulls wheeling lazily overhead from the sandy shore. She splashed her way through the surf to the real treasure of the inlet, a little pool of fresh water that trickled into the surf. The water wasn't as chilly as the ocean, washing away the salt and refreshing her. Clambering out, she squeezed the water from her hair. Marian dug through her pack momentarily to pull out a hairpin and piled it up, loose curls fluttering dry in the sea breeze as she pulled on Bethany's shirt. Leandra had begrudgingly let out the shoulders, leaving it too short on the arms and loose around the chest, but it was enough for relaxing on a secluded beach, away from all the daily worries.
Marian laid out on one of the flatter boulders in the dappled shade of a tree. The rumble of surf and warm rock lulled her into a half-sleep, Valor resting his square head on her stomach with a totally unnecessary sigh of exhaustion. His deep, rumbling growl snapped her out of her drowse and wide awake, rolling out from under the mabari, off the boulder, and grabbing her halberd from the sand. Valor charged into the bushes, growl turning into a happy bark, herding a very sheepish looking Fenris onto the beach.
"I-er-well-that is, good afternoon, Hawke." It was entertaining watching him stand there, greatsword strapped to his back, arms crossed, hunched and glowering everywhere but at her while Valor yipped and danced around him like the excited puppy the mabari still believed himself to be.
Leaning on her halberd and raising an eyebrow, Marian tried to keep a straight face, "Spying on me, are you?"
"I saw you taking the ferry all alone and followed you. An attractive woman all alone, even one as capable as you are, would be quite the prize for slavers." A flash of olive green peeked between his silver bangs before flicking away again, "Maker's sake, woman, put on some pants."
"You mean you don't think I'll be starting the next fashion craze? Old, let-out shirts and bare legs aren't going to be sweeping across the Marches next season?"
Fenris snorted.
"Isabela would be quite put out, you know."
He rolled his head to give her a half-hearted glare, gaze sweeping down her tawny bare legs before turning his back to her, "Far be it from me to comment on the pirate wench and her taste in fashion."
"It's not really my style either." Marian plunked on the boulders and quickly pulled on stockings, leggings, boots and armor. She nudged the prickly elf with a good natured elbow and started back along the game path. "So, you really followed me all the way out here just on the off-chance slavers were wandering this exact stretch of beach?"
"Varric has leads on more work for us, as well." There was something in the tone of his voice, she knew he wasn't telling the whole truth.
"Fenris, I hope one day you'll trust that I refuse to work with demons and I don't condone blood magic." The silence confirmed her hunch. "The only way I can think of to get you to believe me, though, is to keep working with you and letting my actions speak for me."
Silence hung over them. When the ferry dock drew into sight, Fenris's gauntleted hand closed gently around Marian's elbow. "Hawke… I apologize. You haven't given me reason to distrust you thus far. And much as I relish killing slavers, I would not want them to lay a single finger on you first."
Marian just smiled at Fenris, laying a friendly hand over his, giving it a squeeze. "Thank you, Fenris. Truly."