She was cleaning out her pack at the keep when he noticed it. She put the small parcel on the table as she was pulling everything out of the bag.
"What's this?" Nathaniel asked as he unwrapped the scrap of parchment to find a golden ring. "I don't remember you wearing this before."
"Do you remember when we were in the Blackmarsh?" Elissa said. "That was the ring in the bottle that we found after following the clues."
Nathaniel did remember that day. They'd been searching for a Grey Warden named Kristoff who had been looking for clues on the darkspawn. When they found the skeleton, next to a poison bottle and an angry letter from a woman named Bonnie, Elissa's eyes had grown sad, then determined. Despite everything else that they had needed to do, she insisted that they follow the clues that the man Corrin had left for his lover. "Someone should find whatever it is he left for her," she had said. "The poor man deserved that much, at least."
When they found the bottle floating in one of the shallow ponds of the marsh and discovered the engagement ring inside, he remembered it had really bothered her, more so than nearly anything else they had seen in their travels up to that point. She hadn't said much, but she knelt and said a short prayer before pocketing the ring and note.
"You kept it with you all this time?" Nathaniel was surprised. He didn't remember her ever being this sentimental about anything, let alone a stranger's failed marriage proposal.
Elissa nodded. "I keep it to remind myself to try to understand other people. That poor man spent all that time to try to give his love a story that they could remember together. She never understood him, or she wouldn't have gotten so angry and left him." She looked sad and picked up the ring to study it. "It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. He loved her enough to die for her, and she didn't see it." She wrapped the ring in the parchment and put it back in her pack.
A few weeks later they traveled to Orzammar. They were special guests at a ceremony to honor the dead at Kal'Hirol. While they were there, Nathaniel noticed a merchant's stand filled with gems. He got an idea when the saw the emeralds. They were the same color as Elissa's eyes.
He collected other items the same way. He obtained scraps of silverite from Wade's forge, since they reminded him of their time in the Wending Woods. A bit of dragonbone, in deep red, reminded him of the Blackmarsh. For each item collected, there was a story, a reminder of time they had spent together.
He found a jeweler in Amaranthine to compose the various items. He explained the design he wanted and gave the jeweler the materials he had collected. He instructed that the engraving on the inside have both the Howe and Cousland crests. The jeweler promised it would be ready in a few weeks.
When Nathaniel came back to collect it, it was perfect. The ring had come out exactly as he wanted, all of the separate elements combining to form a work of art. It was time.
He brought her to the dungeon of the estate after dinner. While it might seem odd to most people, that was where they had first spoken to each other and it was where their story began. He put his arms around her and asked, "Do remember when we first met?" Elissa smiled and said, "Of course I do."
He pulled out the ring and showed it to her. He told her how all the parts of the ring reminded him of stories they had already collected together, and how the parts had come together to make this single, whole item. Then, he asked the question.
"Will you do me the honor, Elissa, of marrying me?"
The answer was yes.