This story is dedicated to fellow fanfiction writer Morninglight. We participated in a Secret Santa gift exchange together and the first part of her gift was a bit late, so I decided to add this one on as an apology. I hope you enjoy!
**Disclaimer: This world belongs to the creative minds behind BioWare's game Dragon Age II. I am humbly borrowing their world and embellishing their characters a bit**
Simple Gifts
Fenris stood outside the entrance to Hawke's estate, a carefully wrapped bundle under his left arm. He held up his hand to knock on the door and hesitated. The last time he had walked out this particular door, a bittersweet question had hung in the air between Marian and himself. The handsome elf flexed his right hand into a fist and released it. The lyrium veins moved beneath his skin as the muscles and tendons strained alongside his storm-ridden mood. His nerves prickled as he recalled the way she had traced the veins with her finger and then with her tongue, testing his tolerance to each sensation before growing bolder with her exploration. Normally Fenris hated to be touched, but with her the pain had melded to pleasure and his skin seemed to vibrate with need at the mere thought of her.
"That door won't open itself you know." A brash voice drawled from behind.
Fenris turned to find Seneschal Bran swaying gently in the breeze. The redheaded official appeared to be fully soused this evening. A mischievous smile played at the corner of his arrogantly handsome face. Hanging from the crook of his arm was a rather questionable elf – one Fenris thought he'd seen at The Blooming Rose a time or two before.
"Were you also invited to the party?" Fenris' deep voice rumbled in the night air.
Bran chuckled and gave the warrior a knowing smirk. "Not exactly." Pressing his hand to the side of his face, he whispered. "The Lady Hawke is still a bit miffed that I turned her down."
The elf at Bran's side moved in closer, tightening the grip on his arm.
"I try to avoid the complications of such a liaison, besides perhaps the Lady is more your type." Bran sniffed. "Both clinging to a station in which you do not belong?"
Fenris clenched his jaw, trying to ignore the slight.
Bran patted his companion's hand. "Then again, I hear that grey warden healer of yours is planning to make a move for her hand."
Fenris glowered. The bundle at his side felt more like a burden as he imagined Marian with the mage.
The Seneschal winked at Fenris. "Enjoy the festivities. That is, if you manage to make it beyond the door." He weaved his way down the nearly empty street as if it were a crowded thoroughfare.
"You too." Fenris muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
He held his breath and knocked. After a few moments, the large wooden door opened with a creaking noise and Sandal stood in the entryway staring up at him. "Hello." The boy's voice came out in a sort of sing-song greeting.
"Good evening." Fenris nodded when he realized the boy wasn't moving aside to let him in.
Bodahn Feddic came to the door. "Master Fenris, welcome!" He waved his hand to the elf. "Come on, boy. Let's allow our guest to come inside." He gently guided Sandal away from the door.
Fenris stepped over the threshold and glanced back at the welcoming darkness outside before closing the door behind him.
"Glad you could make it." Bodahn smiled, his face warm and sincere. "I know the lady of the house was hoping you might make an appearance."
"Oh?" Fenris felt his heart leap against his ribcage. He tried to stamp down the excitement that coursed through him. It was his decision to stay away.
"Yes. She's around here somewhere." Bodahn glanced into the main room before turning his attention back to Fenris. "Is that a gift for the exchange?" He motioned to the bundle.
"Um…no. It is for Marian."
Bodahn looked a bit confused. "Did you not have an item for the random exchange then?" He asked. "I don't believe that you will get a gift if you don't give one."
Fenris shook his head. "I don't want anything."
"I see." Bodahn's eyebrows went up. "Well, I'll find a good spot for that one then, so it doesn't get mixed in with the others."
Begrudgingly, Fenris turned the package over to the dwarf. He knew him to be a trustworthy fellow, but he had wanted to give the gift to Marian himself. He watched Bodahn take it through the main room and over into the room that led up to the library. When Bodahn was out of sight, he surveyed the house and its other guests. The main room was so warm and inviting. Festive decorations of red, gold, silver, and green dressed up the mantles, twined around the stair rails, and dripped from the wall sconces. Clinging to the shadows between the foyer and the main hall, Fenris leaned into the wall and watched the others from his vantage point just outside of their cozy gathering.
He looked on as Varric pranced around the fireplace, playing with Hawke's mabari. The dog rolled around and leapt into the air, drawing Varric's hearty laughter. Gamlen shuffled from one room to the next, mug of ale in hand and a festive fool's hat askew on his grey head. Aveline was shooting the man a dirty look as he passed by, while half listening to one of her guards relating tales of their latest confrontation down at the docks. Beyond the hall, into the library where Bodahn had disappeared, Fenris caught a glance at the foolish little dalish mage. Merrill appeared to be talking to herself as she moved along a wall of books. He watched her dithering away to herself and shook his head.
After a few moments, Sebastian came scooting past Merrill and out of the library – a rosy blush creeping up his neck and cheeks. Fenris drew his brows together. Sebastian politely pushed himself into the conversation with Aveline and her guards just as Isabela sauntered out of the room behind him. A smile of amusement played at Fenris' lips. He could just imagine the sort of things the pirate might say to get such a rise out of the poor sheltered chantry boy. He was contemplating joining the party when a movement at the top of the stairs to the bedchambers caught his eye.
It was Anders. He looked down over the group below and turned away from the railing, retreating in the direction of Marian's room. Marian had yet to make an appearance below, so it stood to reason that she was upstairs, probably waiting for her new lover. A lump rose up in Fenris' throat, threatening to choke the air clean out of him. Why him? He gritted his teeth. He could understand if she chose to move forward with another relationship, but he had never trusted the mage. There was something about him that made the lyrium in his veins vibrate with distaste. Fenris backed away from the crowd and further into the shadows. He was about to turn for the door when a voice like sex and honey whispered into his ear.
"Don't go, yet." He felt the voluptuous curves of Isabela's enticing body as she pushed herself against him from behind. "Unless you would like me to join you."
Jealousy left a bitter temptation on his tongue. He cleared it away. "I'd prefer to be alone."
"Are you certain about that?" Isabela used her breath to tickle the sensitive spot behind his ear.
"Very." He stated, disengaging himself from her blatant invitation.
She shot him a sly smile. "You can always change your mind." She traced a finger along his jaw and purposefully brushed against him again as she walked past. "You know where to find me."
"Indeed, I do." Fenris nodded, but did not follow.
He looked back at the upper level. There was still no sign of either Anders or Marian. Clenching his teeth, he waited a few more minutes. He had to give Isabela a head start if he wanted to avoid another encounter with her this evening. As he stood, fists clenched and glaring at the exit, Bodahn came jogging into the foyer. He was slightly out of breath.
"Oh, good! You are still here."
"I was just leaving." Fenris ground out.
"Well, then I caught you just in time." Bodahn held up a small brown package wrapped in red ribbons and cloth. "I found this under the gift table. It has your name on it."
Fenris stared at the package as if it were a snake about to strike.
Bodahn thrust it forward again. "Here."
"I thought you said I had to give an anonymous gift to participate in the exchange?"
"Yes." Bodahn nodded. "This was separate from the others."
Fenris took the package. He stared at the thick ribbons and the unmistakable emblem of Hawke's crest sewn into the cloth that held the brown paper in place. His name was scrawled on one corner in Marian's neat script. He drew his brow down in a brooding sort of way as he stared at the gift. Had she truly been hoping that he would come or was this some strange sort of consolation prize?
"Thank you." Fenris muttered to the dwarf.
Bodahn nodded and turned back to the party in the other room. Alone once more, Fenris contemplated the package and its contents. He didn't want to stay in this place any longer, imagining what might be taking place upstairs, but the gift filled him with conflicted emotions and a number of questions. Laughter from the house drifted into the foyer, assailing his ears. He turned away from the happy sounds and strode out the door, package clutched absently in one hand. The cool night air was a welcome reprieve and Fenris allowed the brisk breeze to cleanse the evening from his mind as he stalked back to the mansion.
Marian sat on the edge of her mother's bed, fingering the corner of an old handkerchief where the delicately embroidered initials L.H. had been placed. A few dresses lay on the bed next to her, discarded from her mother's indecisive attempts to find the perfect ensemble for her ill-fated date. Marian hadn't been able to touch anything in this room since her mother's death. Sucking in a shaky breath, she pushed a few dark strands of hair away from her face and wiped at the wetness beneath her eyes.
She was expected to join the festivities below, but setting aside the losses in her family proved a bit more difficult than she anticipated – especially during the holidays. This party had sounded like a wonderful idea at the time. It was supposed to be an opportunity for her to avoid spending Satinalia alone. Marian placed the handkerchief on the nightstand, tracing the initials with her finger once more. A gentle rap on the bedroom door drew her attention away from her musings.
Marian cleared her throat. "Yes?"
The door cracked open and Bodahn's head poked through. "I've been wondering where you were hiding. Your guests have been asking after you."
"I'm sorry." She stood. "I guess I'm not feeling very festive after all."
"Would you like me to send everyone home?"
Marian shook her head. "No. That won't be necessary." She let out a half-hearted laugh. "Mother would tell me to get down there and make my guests feel welcome. She would frown on me hiding away up here – that's for certain."
Bodahn gave her a sympathetic smile. "I imagine she would, wouldn't she?"
Marian sighed and moved away from her sanctuary. She followed Bodahn out and gently closed the door behind her. She was about to head down the stairs when Bodahn jerked a thumb in the direction of her room. "Just so ya know. That mage friend of yours was up here snooping about. I think he went in there."
She frowned. "Thank you, Bodahn."
Marian turned towards her bedroom to see what Anders was up to this time. When she pushed opened the door, his blonde head was hovering over her journal.
"Can I help you?" She asked.
He spun about, surprise clear on his face. "Oh, you startled me."
She crossed her arms. "And here I thought I should be the startled one. This is my room, isn't it?"
"Of course. I –" A flush crept over his cheeks. "I was looking for you and I thought you might be up here."
"In an empty room." She nodded, narrowing her eyes on him. "Makes perfect sense."
"Well, no." He lifted his hands awkwardly. "I just hoped that, maybe we could talk…alone."
Marian took a deep breath. She had tried to let him down gently, but his advances seemed to be increasing as of late. He was handsome enough – perhaps a little too handsome for her own good – and he usually had a better way with words, but she just didn't feel a connection with him. She wasn't sure if it was his obsessive fervor over the mage liberation or the fact that just beneath the surface he harbored a spirit being that seemed to overtake him at will. Marian just couldn't let herself completely trust Anders or his motivations. When she looked at his honest face she saw a beautiful mask, one that did a good job hiding the dangerous and volatile man behind the facade.
"Anders –" Her voice held a note of sadness. Perhaps if circumstances were different she might feel differently about him. "I don't think we are in the same place in this." She gestured awkwardly between the two of them.
"It's him, isn't it?" Anders balled one hand into a fist and looked down at the floor. "He's a mage hater! How can you…? What about your family? Your sister?"
His reaction knocked away any regret she might have had. "And you, my dear, are a Templar hater. How does that make you any better?"
He grunted and walked up to her. "Do not make us the same." He lifted a hand as if he might touch her, but withdrew. "When you come to your senses, you let me know."
Marian held her ground as he moved past her onto the upper landing. She watched and waited for him to head downstairs before she closed her bedroom door and turned the key. Fenris and Anders were both so hotheaded about each other. She imagined locking them in a room together to work out their differences and wondered if anything would be left standing afterwards.
Fenris strode into the room he had claimed as his own, tossing the package on the table, and moving to stand by the fire. The hearth had burnt itself down to embers and he had to stoke up the bits of wood that still glowed with a hot red center and added more wood to get it going again. After the new wood was crackling and turning to a blaze, he settled in his usual chair with a bottle of wine and his own sour mood. He took a few swigs from the bottle and glared at the gift. He thought about tossing it into the fire, but couldn't quite bring himself to do so. He swirled the wine in the bottle and tried to focus on the flames, but the red ribbons of the package continued to catch the corner of his eye.
Eventually, curiosity got the better of him and he went to the table. With another swig from the bottle, he slammed it onto the table and snatched the package up. He tore at the ribbons and sash with the ferocity of a wild animal devouring its prey. When he peeled back the last bits of brown paper, he simply stared at the contents. Two sturdy leather short boots sat on the table, a mess of ribbons and paper around them. Shoes were an odd gift, but they took Fenris' breath away. He recalled the first time she had mentioned the idea to him.
Marian had come to visit him in the mansion. With her own sense of patience and care, she had been teaching him to read. At one point during their lesson he found himself stumbling over yet another word and when he looked to her for help he realized that she had been staring absently at his feet.
"How can you run around without shoes all the time?" She had asked, a perplexed look spread over her face.
He had shrugged his shoulders and waved it off. "I suppose it is just something that a slave gets used to."
Her hand had reached over at that point and touched his forearm. "Fenris," the way she said his name sent shivers down his spine, "no one should be used to such things."
He had pulled away and focused his attention back on the book.
In typical fashion, Marian had turned the mood light with her indignant humor. "Well, I am very concerned about the condition of your feet. I can't have one of my warriors limping about in the middle of battle, because he has stubbed his toe or stepped on a sharp rock."
He had smiled, in spite of himself. "I assure you. I will be fine."
He ran his fingers over the fine leather of the boots. They were good quality. And they told him one thing for certain. Even with everything that had happened, she still cared about him. And he still cared for her. Picking up the red sash and ribbons, he twined the ribbon around his wrist and the sash about his waist like favors received from a maiden. He would always fight for her – even if he could not be with her.
Marian had done her best to play hostess, but she was relieved when the last guest had left. She moved about the house like a shambling corpse, trying to help Bodahn with the cleanup. A number of times he tried to send her away, but she wanted to be busy. After a while she found herself at the gift table. The tabletop was nothing but a mess of discarded papers and ribbons now that the exchange was over. Marian began to gather up the ribbons to see if any of them were salvageable. She paused as she picked up the last of them, and placed the bunch on the corner of the table.
Kneeling down, she lifted the edge of the table cloth and reached beneath the table to reclaim her package. Marian furrowed her brow. She pulled out a bundle wrapped with linen and twine and placed it on the table. When she checked beneath the table again, her small brown package was gone. She looked about the library for Bodahn. She heard him moving about in the other room and took the other package with her. When he noticed her entrance, she held up the cloth bundle in question.
"I was looking for something I left beneath the table in the library and instead I found this." She lifted an eyebrow. "Did someone else take the other package by accident?"
Bodahn's toe brushed the floor and he looked to the ceiling. "Are you referring to the brown package with red ribbons?"
"That would be the one."
"As a matter of fact, I gave it to the elf." Bodahn rubbed a gruff hand against his neck. "It had his name on it."
Marian's breath caught in her throat. "Fenris? He was here?"
Bodahn nodded. "Did I do something wrong, Miss?"
"Uh, no-" Marian hesitated. "Well, yes, actually. Why didn't you come and find me?" A mild annoyance rose up in her voice.
"I wasn't sure where you were at the time." Bodahn shrugged helplessly. "Besides he left almost as soon as he arrived. I barely caught him before he headed out the door."
Marian sighed and leaned against the railing at the base of the stairs. "I had hoped to give it to him myself."
"Well, he brought that for you, Miss." Bodahn indicated the bundle in her hands.
She looked down at the oddly wrapped package. "He did?"
"He did."
Marian furrowed her brows and stared at the bundle for the span of a few heartbeats before hugging it to her chest and trotting up the stairs to her room. "Thank you." She absently shot over her shoulder to the dwarf.
Once she reached her room, she unlocked the door and closed herself inside. She had no idea what kind of gift he might leave for her, but just the fact that Fenris had thought of her on this day was enough to make her eyes twinkle with a bit of hopeful anticipation. Settling on the edge of her bed, she gently picked at the twine until it fell loosely to the floor. The cloth was a thick fabric, not unlike the utilitarian table cloths they used beneath the decorative ones – no doubt something he had scrounged up from some corner of Danarius' mansion. Marian unraveled the cloth with care until it lay over her lap, opening to reveal its contents to her.
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she lifted a beautiful silk robe into the air. The night they had lain together she had seen the warrior's gentle and savage side and somewhere in the midst of their passion, he had torn her old robe to tatters. In his strange way, this was almost like an apology. A nostalgic laugh escaped her lips and she set the robe next to her on the bed. Beneath the robe was a book. It was a thick leather bound volume that she had seen before. She ran a hand over the faded title, the indentations for the pressed letters were still present, but the gold lettering was worn. It was a collection of stories. She had given it to Fenris when he was learning to read. She thought he might appreciate reading the story of the famed Aveline, Knight of Orlais, since her Ferelden counterpart would never tell it. He must have finished it.
Marian sighed and flipped through the pages, looking for Aveline's story. It was one of her favorites. The book fell open on a different page though. A thick piece of leather seemed to be keeping the place of another story. Marian scanned the first few sentences. It was the tale of Alindra and her Soldier. A small tear fell down Marian's cheek. The story was one of her mother's favorites. She used to tell it to her when she was a young girl. She remembered it as a sad and wistful tale of tragic love. Her mother thought it was a hopeful story and Marian had always found it rather depressing that two people who loved each other couldn't be together except in death.
"Oh, Fenris." She whispered, running her fingers over the fading letters on the page. "I love you too."