"Damnit!" Fenris shouted as his armored fist hit the wall.
After years of searching for his former captor, he was finally free. Danarius was dead, killed by his former slave's lyrium laced hands. Fenris could finally be at peace. But he wasn't at peace. Not at all.
He paced the floor in front of the ashen fireplace, muttering to himself as he went.
"You fool, you could have been happy. You could have had a chance at something better."
It had been three years ago, almost to the day, and not one moment went by that she wasn't on his mind. It was bad enough to have the cowardly decision he had made replaying over and over again in his mind, but to also see her daily - to look and know he would never again be allowed to touch - it was almost unbearable. Although Marian was strong, he could see that the spark in her eyes had faded. There were days when they fought side by side, caught up in the heat of the battle that her eyes would light up again. But when the fight was over, Marian would look at him, panting from exhaustion with a satisfied smile on her face. And as quick at it had appeared the smile would fade, and the excitement would pass. He knew he was the cause of her pain.
"But how do I fix this? How do I confess a feeling that I have denied to myself for years? Not only that, but to confess to a person who can barely stand to look at me?" he thought to himself.
Fenris picked up one of the empty wine bottles that littered his mansion's floor. He threw it as hard as he could at the wall, hoping for some relief from his anger. When no relief came, he grabbed one of the last full bottles and sank into his chair. The sudden movement caused a book to fall off his mantle and land at his feet with an obnoxious thud.
"The Little Dragon Who Razed a Village," he said out loud with a smirk coming to his lips.
Hawke was teaching him to read with this book. She had always loved it as a child and took the time to sit with him patiently as he slowly stumbled through the words. He never told her but he always looked forward to their reading lessons. Being able to finally make sense of the words that he dismissed as unnecessary in the past, gave him a sense of freedom from his former life. Although he grumbled and complained through his lessons, he was grateful for her persistence – although he would never tell her that. However, after their night together and his shamefully abrupt exit, she never mentioned his reading lessons again. The book had sat on the mantle, untouched and gathering dust, for three years.
Fenris cracked it open, blowing the dust away, and taking a long drink from his bottle of wine.
"Once the-er-ere, there was a dr-draa-drag-on, dragon named ssss-kip Skip," he read out loud to himself, pretending for a moment she was there to listen.
Just looking at it now made him sick to his stomach. He tossed it into the fireplace with a hard force, making the ashes scatter about the brick, "Fuck you and your damned dragon," he screamed as he threw a lit match onto the now wine-soaked book. Within a moment it was in a blaze and he threw a few more bits of paper and wood into the flames, "Better to not freeze to death, I suppose."
Fenris slumped back into his chair, letting out a deep sigh.
"Ay, Maker..." he said as he put his head down, massaging the front of his forehead.
He wasn't mad at Hawke, he could never be mad at her. She had remained fighting at his side, helping him to destroy the one piece of his past that held him back. She did so without question, and with a vengence almost as strong as his own. She could have made him leave, given up on him, but she allowed him to stay.
Varric had been the only one to notice, three years ago, that the tension had changed between two of them. Hawke had become quieter when Fenris was around and rarely joked as much as she once had. Fenris had withdrew into himself, so much so that Varric stopped calling him "Broody" and started calling him "King of the Brooding Broody Elves". Fenris knew she had talked to Varric not long ago, finally conviding in him what had happened that night. He only knew because Varric kept giving him cold glances during their travels, and simply referring to him as "Elf", when he referred to him at all.
As the warmth of the wine began to wash over him, Fenris began reliving what had transpired that day. Not only had he finally met, and in doing so, quickly killed his sister, but he was finally free from Danarius' wrath. Hawke let him have the final blow, forever changing what was to become of his future. When the glow of his lyrium lines faded, he had looked up at a her, meeting her green eyes for only a moment.
"Are you ok, Fenris?"she had asked, gently touching his heavily amored shoulder.
"Don't TOUCH me! Just...just...leave me alone! I NEED to get out of this place!" he screamed at her with such a vigor she jumped back, cowering like a scared child.
Then he stormed out of the dark tavern, and didn't stop until he was alone in his cold, dark and ever lonely mansion.
The very memory of that moment made his heart reel in pain.